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GRE4l^RICANS 
HISTORY 


















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Great Americans of History 



SAMUEL ADAMS 

A CHARACTER SKETCH 



BY 

SAMUEL FALLOWS, D.D., LL.D. 

Ex-Supt. of Public Instruction of Wisconsin; Ex-Prcs. Illinois Wcslcyan University, and 
Chancellor of The University Association. 



WITH SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY, BY 

G. MERCER ADAM _ 

Late Editor of "Self-Culture" Magazine Ere,. F.tg. 



» 9 o > 3 ■* 3 :> :> , 



TOGETHER WITH 

ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS, AND CHRONOLOGY 
BY 

L. B. VAUGHAN and OTHERS. 



H. G. CAMPBELL PUBLISHING CO. 

MILWAUKEE. 
1903. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. 


Two Copies Receive* 


SEP 23 1903 


Copyn^i^t Entry 
CLASS Q^ XXc. No 


COPY B. 



GREAT AMERICANS OF HISTORY SERIES. 



Thomas Jefferson, by Edward S. 
Ellis, A. M., Author of "The 
People's Standard History of the 
United States," etc. With Sup- 
plementary Essay by G. Mercer 
Adam, Late Editor ot "Self-Cult- 
ure" Magazine, with an Account 
of the Louisiana Purchase, to- 
gether with Anecdotes, Charac- 
teristics, Chronology and Say- 
ings. 

Jamks Otis, by John Clark Rid- 
path, LL. D., Author of "Rid- 
path's History of the United 
States," etc. With Supplemen- 
tary Essay by G. Me-Vcer Adam, 
Late Editor of "Self-Culture" 
Magazine; together with Anec- 
dotes, Characteristics, and Chro- 
nology. 

John Hancock, by JohnR. Musick, 
Author of "The Columbian His- 
torical Novels," etc. With Sup- 
plementary Essay by G. Mercer 
Adam, Late Editor of "Self-Cul- 
ture" Magazine; together with 
Anecdotes, Characteristics, and 
Chronology. 

Samuel Adams, by Samuel Fallows, 
D. D., LL. D., Ex-Supt. of Pub- 
lic Instruction of Wisconsin; 
Ex-Pres. Illinois Wesleyan Uni- 
versity. With Supplementary 
Essay by G. Mercer Adam, Late 
Editor of "Self-Culture" Maga- 
zine; together with Anecdotes, 
caiaracteristics,and Chronology. 

Benjamin Franklin, by Frank 
Strong, Ph. D., Lecturer on 
United States History, Yale Uni- 
versit:^, New Haven. Conn. With 

. Su»plemen1a.l ^s^ay 0^ G. Mercer 

• Adiim, Lat**:dit«r o£ " Self-Cul- 

; iu^" M^g^zfne/ ejc., and a 
Character Study by Prof. Charles 
K. Edmunds, Ph. D. ,ot Johns Hop- 

. kins ITiiiverslty : together with 
,♦. ^^ntecOcftes, Chat^«1?aristics, and 
' • ilcaivonojogy. . . ; • 

^<3HN AjMMS, by IJaKmel Willard, 
LL, D., Author of ^'Synopsis of 
History," etc. With Supplemen- 
tary Essay by G. Mercer Adam, 
Late Editor of "Self-Culture" 
Magazine; together with Anec- 
dotes, Characteristics, and Chro- 
nology. 



^i.oo per Volume. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by Edward 
S. Ellis, A. M., Author of " The 
People's Standard History of the 
United States," etc. With Sup- 
plementary Essay by G. Mercer 
Adam, Late Editor of "Self-Cul- 
ture" Magazine, etc.; together 
with Anecodotes, Characteris- 
ti ;s,and Chronology. 

George Washington, by Eugene 
Parsons, Ph. D., Lecturer on 
American History, etc. With 
Supplementary Essay by G. Mer- 
cer Adam, Late Editor of "Self- 
Culture" Magazine; and an Ar- 
ticle by Prof. Henry Wade 
Rogers, LL. D., of Yale Univer- 
sity; together with Anecdotes, 
Characteristics,and Chronology. 

John Randolph, by Richard Heath 
Dabney, M. A., Ph. D., Professor 
of History, University of Vir- 
ginia. With Supplementary 
Essay by G. Mercer Adam, Late 
Editor of "Self-Culture" Maga- 
zine; together with Ancedotes, 
Characteristics, and Chronology. 

Daniel Webster, by Elizabeth A. 
Reed, A. M., L. H. D., Ex-Pres. 
Illinois Woman's Press Associa- 
tion. With Supplementary Es- 
say by G. Mercer Adam, Late Edi- 
tor of "Self-Culture" Magazine; 
together with Anecdotes. Char- 
acteristics, and Chronology. 

Henry Clay, by H. W. Caldwell, 
A. M., Ph. B., Professor of Ameri- 
can History. University of Ne- 
braska. With Supplementary 
Essay by G. Mercer Adam. Late 
Editor of "Self-Culture" Maga- 
zine; together with Ancedotes, 
Characteristics, and Chronology. 

ABRAHAM Lincoln, by Robert Dick- 
inson Sheppard, D. D., Professor 
of American and English His- 
tory, Northwestern University. 
With Supplementary Essay by G. 
Mercer Adam, Late Editor of 
"Self-Culture" Magazine, etc., 
also Suggestions from the Life 
of Lincoln by Prof. Francis W. 
Shepardson, Ph. D., ot the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. Together 
with Anecdotes, Characteristics, 
and Chronology. 

^l2.oo per Set. 



H. 



G. CAMPBELL PUBLISHING CO., 

Milwaukee. 



Copyright, 1898, 
By THE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION 

Copyright, 190J, 
By H. G. CAMPBELL PUBLISHING CO. 







mmmmimimm 



p 



SAMUEL FALLOWS D.D.LL.D. 

CHANCELLOR, THE UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION. 



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I 



\f V 

THERE is, properly speaking, no ancient history, no 
medieval history, no modern history. History is one. 
The ages are all nnited. Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, 
Palestine, Greece, Rome, Holland, France, Spain, Ger- 
many and England, all have to do with the practical life of 
Americans to-day. Lessons of importance can be learned 
from each of them to help us act intelligently in perform- 
ance of the duties devolved upon us. 

It has been well said, "There is no romance like 
the romance of history. Indeed in a large sense history 
is romance; for life itself is strange and mysterious; and 
all its happenings are filled with dramatic elements 
which need but the touch of imagination to glow, as 
the dull carbon flashes into light when quickened by the 
electric current. 

"All the years have voices for them that will hear; 
and even the simple annals of common place events have 
in them the heart of epic possibilities." 

English and American history are full of dramatic 
incidents. The important epochs in both nations have 
been distinctly marked by stirring scenes and events. 

The English Revolution under Cromwell, that greatest 



6 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

of Britian's rulers was the forerunner of the American 
Revohition. 

Charles the First who, unfortunately, lived again in 
spirit in George the Third, was brought to the scaffold for 
trampling upon the liberties of his English subjects. 

Out of the conflict with this Monarch, who was not a 
King by divine right, but by the forebearance and long 
suffering of a down trodden people, sprang the Puritan 
Age. From this were born New England, the English 
influence in America, and the English Settlements of the 
American Colonies. 

The inhabitants of the four New England Colonies, 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode 
Island, in 1750 were most of them the great grandsons 
and great great grandsons of the thousand Puritans who 
crossed the ocean between 1620 and 1640 and settled 
New England. Scarcely two men in a hundred were of 
other than English blood. 

These men in general owned the ground on which 
they lived. Nearly every one could read and write and 
above all, could think. 

The white people in the Southern States were also dis- 
tinctively English, although they represented the Caval- 
ier type of character in contrast with the Puritan type of 
the New England inhabitants. 

And while there must be a due acknowledgement of the 
powerful influences exerted by the Revolutionary men 
of the South in the development of American thought 
and life, the palm must be conceded to New England. 
And to-day "complex as our population has become, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 7 

while it is true that we are New Ireland and New Ger- 
many and New France, it is still New England in the 
broadest sense of that term, which dominates and pre- 
scribes the institutions which shape this great republic 
and the ideas that control its destiny." 

We may add in confirmation of the truth of this state- 
ment the keen observation of the philosophical De 
Tocquevellewho says, ''The civilization of New England 
has been like a beacon light upon a hill, which, after it 
has diffused its warmth immediately around it, also tinges 
the distant horizon with its glow." 

The Teutonic people handed down to their English 
descendants the "Folkmote," which appeared later in 
the New England town-meeting. 

Each New England town was called by Gordon, a 
writer at the time of the Revolution, "an incorporated 
Republic." All the people of the town were warned to 
attend a meeting when called upon by selectmen, who 
might act upon their own authority, or upon the applica- 
tion of a certain number of townsmen. 

All of the people were on a level of political equality. 
Each individual had the right of delivering his own 
opinion, no matter how poor and humble. These New 
England town-meetings played a most important part 
in the history of American Independence. 

Massachusetts, then including Maine, contained 210,- 
000 inhabitants, and numbered more than two hundred 
towns. In these particulars she was the foremost of all 
the American colonies. While her own soil suffered lit- 
tle as compared with the Center and South from military 



8 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

devastation, she was the foremost in making sacrifices for 
the common good. 

New England had a population a little more than one- 
third of the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies, and yet 
she furnished 118,251 of the 231,791 continental troops 
called into service. 

Massachusetts contributed more than one-fourth of the 




King Charles I. 

number, or about 69, 907 men. In the same iproportion 
she furnished money and supplies. This colony had a 
people that were welded together in their thoughts, 
habits and associations. The Tories were not very num- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 9 

erous within her bounds as there were comparatively but 
few of them in any of the New England Colonies, but 

they were very active. 

''Boston led Massachusetts and Massachusetts led the 
thirteen colonies." This city was the center of attack 
by George the Third and his ministers. Instead of using 
the term American or New Englander, many of the Eng- 
lish writers used to speak of "Bostoneers," as though the 
fight were to be carried on against the people of that city 

alone. . 

We are ever to keep in mind that the American Rev- 
olution was the revolt of Englishmen against the despot- 
ism of the English Crown. "The conflict of the Boston 
town meetings," says Edwin D. Mead, ''and the Vir- 
ginia House of Burgesses with King George was pre- 
cisely a repetition of the old conflict between Parliament 
and King Charles, an uprising of Englishmen against 
lawlessness and tyrannical assertion of prerogative." 

It was the old English liberties that Patrick Henry 
was defending when he made his ringing assertion. 
^'Charles the First had his Cromwell." These liberties 
were just as much assailed in England as in Amer- 
ica then. 

Divine Providence raised up Cromwell and his follow- 
ers in the Old World to fight for law and liberty there. 
The same Providence sent brave John Winthrop and his 
devoted band to the New World to provide a home for 
their brethren should they fail in their momentous strug- 

gle. 

Before Massachusetts was five years old, and before it 



lO 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



numbered five thousand souls, it was ready for war with 
King Charles. For when it heard that a royal gover- 
nor was to be sent from England in opposition to its 
charter, it appropriated six hundred pounds to fortify its 
harbor. 

It was not the English Nation that was in opposition 
to the American Colonies. It is the supreme mistake of 

history to have that 
impression prevail. 
Ivouis the Fourteenth 
could arrogantly say, 




^m ^'The State, it 



IS my- 



self;" but he was not the 
French people, he was 
their bitterest foe. The 
satellites that swarmed 
round his throne and 
wrested their means of 
sensual luxury from the 
toil and blood of the 
millions of France, were 
not the French people. 
Charles the First who, 
preceding him, wished 
to be an English Louis the Fourteenth, and George the 
Third, who, "industrious as a beaver and obstinate as a 
mule," ardently desired, foreigner though he was, to be 
the English State, were not the English people. 

The merchants and traders that selfishly sided with 
Parliament for the restriction of the American trade 



Louis XIV. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. it 

were not the English Nation. Nor were those church- 
men, that would have crushed out non-conformity, and 
imposed a haughty, mitred prelacy upon unwilling and re- 
monstrating religionists, the English people. 

The gallant British tars went round the world in the 
old oaken walls of England, singing, 

"Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, 
Britons never, never will be slaves." 

The American Colonists, with the iron of the Eng- 
lish common people in their blood, sent back the defiant 
shout to King George and the men about him whom he 
had bought and corrupted, "Britons never, never will be 
slaves." And they made good that proud English boast 
in the formation of the United States of America. 

It was the narrow-minded, illiberal, selfseeking, rul- 
ing class that brought upon England her difficulties and 
caused the separation. 

When Grenville was defeated as minister, Townshend 
was appointed in his stead. 

Smarting under his defeat, Grenville sneered out from 
his place to the treasury bench. 

"You are cowards; you are afraid of the Americans; 
you dare not tax America." Stung by this taunt, 
Townshend started passionately from his seat exclaiming: 
"Fear! Cowards! Dare not tax America! I dare tax 
America." 

"This boyish bravado, " which reflected however the 
fixed purpose of George the Third, "ushered in the Bill 
which was to cost England thirteen Colonies, add one 
hundred millions to her National debt, and fix a stigma 



12 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



formally years upon her national fame." But Grenville 
and Townsliend and I^ord North with others of their 
kind were not the true exponents of English thought 
and feeling. 

Almost every man whose opinion had real worth was 
on the side of the struggling patriots. 

The noblest of English statesmen like Chatham and 

Pitt and Burke, with 
Walpole and Fox, 
had not lost the spir- 
it of Cromwell and 
Milton, nor forgot- 
ten the treachery of 
the Stuarts. 

They knew they 
were contending for 
the rights of Eng- 
lishmen at home, for 
proper parliamentary 
representation, when 
pleading for the 
rights of Americans 
abroad. 

Great cities like 
Manchester and Shef- 
field had no representatives in parliament, while "rot- 
ten boroughs" which had scarcely any or no inhabi- 
tants sent up members to be the willing tools of George 
the Third. 

The new whigs, as they were termed, headed by Chat- 




Lord North. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



ham were laboring heart and soul for reform. Josiah 
Quincy Jr. heard Chatham's memorable speech in the 
house of Lords on January 20, 1775, on the recalling of 
the troops from Boston. He said: ' 'My Lords, these three 
millions of whigs — three millions of whigs, my lords, 
with arms in their hands, are a very formidable body. 
It was the whigs, my lords, that set his majesty's 
royal ancestors on 
the throne of Eng- 
land. I hope my 
lords, there are yet 
double the number 
of whigs in England 
that there are in 
America. 

''I hope the whigs 
of both countries 
will join and make a 
common cause. 

"Ireland is with 
the Americans to a j 

man. The whigs of " 

that country will,and ^°^^^^ ^^^p°^"' ^^'^ °^ ^^^°'■^• 

those of this country ought to think the American cause 
their own. 

"They are allied to each other in sentiment and inter- 
est, united in one great principle of defense against tyr- 
anny and oppression." 

In the House of Commons, Pitt exclaimed, "I rejoice 
that America has resisted." "Thank God," exclaimed 




14 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



Walpole, on hearing the news of Burgoyne's surrender at 
Saratoga, "Old England is safe." 

Boston, the largest city in America in 1 740, was con- 
sidered, as we have seen, the storm center of the Revolu- 
tion, and the moving spirit in the stirring events taking 
place, was Samuel Adams, justly termed ''The Father of 
the Revolution." 

Says Wendell Phillips, "A demagogue rides the storm, 

he has no ability to create 
one. He uses it narrowly, 
ignorantly, and for selfish 
ends." 

Not a demagogue, but 
a true statesman was Sam- 
uel Adams. He not only 
created a storm such as 
had never before been 
seen in the realm of 
George the Third, but he 
triumphantly rode it. 

He did not use it nar- 
rowly, but for the good of 
a continent and the world. 
He did not use it ignorantly, but with a wisdom never 
before surpassed. He did not use it selfishly, for no pa- 
triot was more disinterested in the services he rendered 
his country. 

For the conspicuous position which he was to occupy 
before the world he brought a rare combination of ster- 
ling qualities. He possessed natural wit and genuine 




William Pitt. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 15 

eloquence that fitted him for any audience. He wielded 
a ready pen and could put into clear, compact and 
sturdy English, easily comprehended by the common 
mind, his calm or burning thoughts. 

He conducted the first political newspaper published in 
Boston which, long before the Revolution, proclaimed it- 
self the champion of the rights and liberties of mankind. 

He mastered thoroughly the principles of the English 
Constitution, and in his fearless application of them to 
the poor and lowly, to those ^ 'who wore a leathern cap 
or a worsted apron," he received the proud appellation of 
"The Tribune of the people." 

Keen intelligence, a fascinating personality, persuasive 
talk, indomitable courage, spotless integrity, unwearied 
energy, unselfish devotion, broad sympathy, with an un- 
shaken faith in God and the divine decrees, were among 
the elements of his massive strength and commanding 
influence. 

He had, too, the peculiar instinct of genius that led 
him to acts, which, as Voltaire said, "foolish men call 
rash, but wise men brave." 

The sternness of his purpose and the austerity of his 
religiousness won for him the name of "The I^ast of the 
Puritans." It was a happy conjunction to link the two 
names together, "The Father of the Revolution" and 
"The Last of the Puritans," in the one who best em- 
bodied the spirit of the American contest for political 
and religious freedom. 

"Sam Adams," says Edwin D. Mead, "was simply 
a man of the English Commonwealth moved another 



i6 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



century down the line of history. He was simply an- 
other John Hampden, or better a John Pym, doing his 
work under American conditions a hundred years 
later." 

But though he was deemed strait-laced in his theolog- 
ical belief, he was just as liberal in his political creed. 
He was at once a Jeffersonian and a Calvinist. 

There were men 
who found fault with 
him because of his 
broad, democratic 
principles, and be- 
cause of his tenacity 
and energy in main- 
taining them. But 
"white livered indif- 
ference is always dis- 
gusted and annoyed 
with earnest convic- 
tion." 

He was the anima- 
ting spirit of that 
band of immortal 
Americans of whom 
we shall never grow 
weary of speaking. 
All were indebted to him, for sympathy, counsel or the 
helping hand extended to them. Among them were: 

*'James Otis, so vehement, so wild in his support of 
liberty, the British called him mad, yet the purest of 




John Hancock. 



SAMLEL ADAMS. 17 

patriots, and possessed of soul-stirring eloquence: John 
A dams,ardent, eloquent, learned. John Hancock, whose 
vvealth and social position and lavish hospitality gave 
him great influence: 

"Joseph Warren, the skilful physician, chivalric in 
spirit, magnetic in social life, with judgment beyond his 
years: Josiah Quincy, the Boston Cicero,and Paul Revere, 
the ingenious goldsmith, ready to engrave a lampoon, 
rally a caucus, or in his capacity of dentist, fit teeth for 
any wdio needed that service, which he warranted they 
could TALK with, if they could not eat with them." 

It w^as of these and others, like William Phillips, the 
merchant prince, and Thomas Gushing, afterwards a 
somewhat zigzag statesman, that the Tories wrote to 
Pmgland, "The young Bostonians are bred up hypo- 
crites in religion and pettifoggers at law; the demons of 
folly, falsehood, madness and rebellion having entered in- 
to the Boston saints, along with their chief, the angel of 
darkness." (Samuel Adams.) 

Governor Bernard wrote with a strong expletive, — 
"Samuel Adams! every dip of his pen stings like a 
horned snake." There was no doubt about the reality 
of the feeling of the governor, whatever may be urged 
against the accuracy of his zoological illustration. 

Admiral Montague forcibly expressed the wishes of 
many of the King's supporters, when he wrote: 

"I doubt not but that I shall hear Mr. Samuel Adams 
is hanged or shot before many months are at an end. I 
hope so at least." 

In personal appearance, Samuel Adams was but little 



i8 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

above tlie medium heiglit,but his erect carriage gave him 
the appearance of being tall. 

He had a florid complexion, clear dark blue eyes, and 
heavy, almost bushy, eyebrows. He had a countenance 
that was both benignant and majestic, which always 
attracted while it impressed strangers. 

Though cordial in manner there was always a little 
formality about him. 

He wore to the end of his life, the tie-wig, cocked hat, 
knee-breeches, buckled shoes and red cloak. 

He would have worn them, according to the custom of 
the times, had he been elected President, unlike Thom- 
as Jefferson, whom he greatly admired. (It will be re- 
membered that Mr, Jefferson was the first President of 
the United States who wore trousers instead of knee- 
breeches, in token of his pronounced democratic sympa- 
thies.) 

The ancestors of Samuel Adams were English, with 
possibly a mixture of Celtic blood, through remote 
Welsh progenitors. 

The founder of the Adams family in America, so nu- 
merous and so renowned, was Henry Adams, who settled 
at an early date near Mount Wollaston, in Quincy, Mas- 
sachusetts. Joseph Adams, of Braintree, and John Ad- 
ams, a sea captain, were his grandsons. 

Joseph Adams was the grandfather of President John 
Adams, and John was the grandfather of Samuel Adams, 
the subject of this sketch. Thus John Adams and Sam- 
uel Adams were cousins. 

The second son of Captain John Adams was Samuel 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 19 

Adams, who was born in Boston, May 6, 1689. At the 
age of twenty-four he was married to Mary Fifield. 
Twelve children proceeded from this union, of whom 
three only survived their father. 

Samuel Adams, our Revolutionary hero, their most 
illustrious child, was ^ 

born in Purchase I 

Street, Boston, Sep- 
tember 16, 1722. 
There is but little 
account given of his 
mother, except that 
she w^as strictly de- 
votional according to 
the puritan stand- 
ards. She left a last- 
ing impress upon the 
boy Samuel, through 
her rigidly pious 
character, giving him 
that moral stamina 
for which he was so 
conspicuous. The 
sober cast of his na- ""''' ^"^^^ ^^^^^^' ^°^'°^- 

ture was also derived from her. His father was a man 
who paid close attention to business affairs, and so ac- 
cumulated an ample fortune. 

He bought, in 171 2, a fine estate in Purchase Street, 
which extended to the low water line of the harbor. 
Upon it had been erected a large and substantial man- 




20 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

sion, which, fronting the water, commanded an excel- 
lent view. 

He was possessed of eminent qualities, and was high- 
ly esteemed in the community in which he lived. 

He was ardently fond of politics, and was interested in 
all matters of public concern. 

''He became justice of the peace, deacon of the Old 
South Church, then an office of dignity, select man, one 
of the important committee of the town to instruct the 
representatives to the Assembly, and at length entered 
the Assembly itself." 

He was one of the founders of ''The Calker\s Club" 
(or Caulker's), about the year 1724, a political organiza- 
tion, largely representing the shipping interests, de- 
signed "to lay plans for introducing certain persons into 
places of trust and power." 

From this term, "calkers," by an easy corruption, 
one of the best known terms in American politics, the 
"caucus," has come. Young Adams, who was familiar- 
ly known to his contemporaries as "Sam" Adams, at- 
tended school in the w^ooden structure in School Street, 
just in the rear of King's Chapel. The story is told 
that such was his regularity or punctuality in going to 
school that the laborers regulated their hours of work by 
him. 

Whatever may be its truth, he must have been an in- 
dustrious and studious boy, for he was prepared to en- 
ter Harvard College at the age of fourteen. He had 
the benefit of the instruction of Mr. Lovell, a celebra- 
ted teacher of the Latin or Grammar School of Boston, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 21 

where so many boys, who afterwards became famous, 
received their education. 

His college course was a brilliant one. Only once 
during his four year's attendance was he subjected to 
reproof for oversleeping himself and missing prayers, 
which then were held at what would now appear to be 
an unseasonable hour. 

Class rank in Harvard College was then determined 
by social position and w^ealth, so totally different from 
the present grading in this most venerable seat of learn- 
ing. In a class of twenty-two Adams ranked fifth. 

He was especially fond of the Latin and Greek authors, 
as the numerous quotations from the classics in his writ- 
ings attest. He never deplored, as Charles Francis Ad- 
ams has done in our day, that he paid so much atten- 
tion to these Dead Languages and so little to the living 
German and French tongues. 

While at the University he w^as serious and secluded, 
although not unsociable. But he made a business of 
study and not an amusement. 

When he was graduated, with honor in 1740, John 
Adams w^as five years old, and Josiali Quincy and Joseph 
Warren were yet unborn. 

James Otis was graduated three years, and Josiah 
Quincy twenty-three years after Adams. 

John Adams completed his college course fifteen years 
after the graduation of Samuel. 

The youthful Adams was both remarkable for the up- 
rightness of his demeanor and for the frugality of his 
habits, while at college. 



22 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

The writer of this sketch once heard a former Profes- 
sor of Harvard, whose name is one of the most honored 
in American ecclesiastical and educational circles, say, 
with marked emphasis, "God save Harvard from being a 
University of rich men's sons." 

But if all the sons of the rich patrons of this great in- 
stitution were like Sam Adams, the fear, contained in 
the prayer, of possible spendthrift habits, wildness of 
life and inattention to- study, w^ould not be realized. 

Out of the stipend allowed him by his father, Adams 
saved a sum sufficient to publish an original pamphlet, 
entitled, "Englishmen's Rights." Surely coming events 
were casting their shadows before. 

The key-note of his long life of over eighty years was 
thus sounded early, and never changed — "Englishmen's 
Rights." 

Nay, the few fragments that remain written in a boy's 
hand in his school books, were on liberty. 

His favorite topic for debates in college societies was 
liberty. Three years after graduation, he received in 
1743 the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard. The 
thesis from which he wrote on that occasion was the 
significant one, 

"Whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magis- 
trate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be pre- 
served ?' ' 

Liberty! liberty! liberty! was thus his ruling idea. 

The new governor, Shirley, the appointee of George 
the Second, and the dignitaries of the land, including 
the Crown officials, were among the large audience as- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 23 

sembled to hear the youthful and bold speaker strike the 
key-note of "incipient treason." 

What was thought of this address is not recorded, 
neither has the manuscript of the thesis been preserved. 

The year that Samuel Adams entered Harvard was 
the same in which the Earl of Chatham entered Parlia- 
ment, so that he must have witnessed the whole of that 
great statesman's splendid career. 

This distinguished Englishman exerted a profound 
influence upon the life and character of the liberty-lov- 
ing young American, whose name was afterwards to be- 
come a household word throughout the English speak- 
ing world, as familiar as his own. 

Samuel Adams was first designed by his parents for 
the ministry. But a wide study of history and govern- 
mental subjects led him in the direction of the law and 
politics. 

His mother, however, disapproved of the law, which, 
in those days, was hardly recognized as a profession. It 
was not looked upon with particular favor by parents 
who aspired for an honorable career for their children. 

He, therefore, entered the mercantile profession, and 
engaged in the service of Thomas Gushing, a prominent 
Boston merchant. But he had "neither taste nor tact 
for business" we are told, and soon relinquishe4 it. 

His father's fortune having become diminished through 
unfortunate plans and investments, Samuel became asso- 
ciated with him in his malting enterprise. 

Upon the death of his father in 1 748, he was solely 
interested- in the management of the malt-house. 



24 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

This afforded great merriment to the satirists and 
lampooners of the da}', \vho dubbed him, ''Sam, the 
Maltster." 

We are told that Admiral Coffin, in quite a different 
spirit, was fond of relating that he had often carried 
malt on his back from I\Ir. Adams' brewery. 

But having- no aptitude for trade, no love for its com- 
petitions, and no desire for its gains, he did not make a 
successful maltster. Public affairs, too, began to absorb 
his time and attention. 

He was, doubtless, held up to view by his critics as a 
forceful illustration of a man who, in minding other 
people's business, was neglecting his own. But the com- 
mon good very often demands the sacrifice of private 
interests. 

On October 17, 1749, he married Elizabeth Checkley, 
the daughter of the Rev. Samuel Checkley. This min- 
ister w^as his father's most intimate friend, and a gentle- 
man of great intelligence and ability. The mother of 
Miss Checkley was the little Elizabeth Rolfe, who so 
marvelously escaped from the Indians at the Haverhill 
massacre, the story of which is narrated in the latter 
part of this sketch. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Adams is described ''as a woman of 
rare beauty and piety, as well as elegance of person and 
manner." 

She died after a brief but happy wedded life of eight 
years, leaving two children. 

Samuel Adams put un record in the family Bible this 
tribute to her memory: 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 25 

"To her husband she was as sincere a friend as she 
was a faithful wife. Her exact economy in all her rela- 
tive capacities, her kindred on this side as well as on her 
own admire. 

"She ran her Christian race with remarkable steadi- 
ness, and finished in triumph. She left two small chil- 
dren. God grant they may inherit her graces." 

The year following his wife's death an incident oc- 
curred which attracted wide- spread attention, and which 
had an important bearing upon future events. 

Samuel Adams' father, years before, had been interest- 
ed, with other prominent persons, in a Land Bank 
scheme to help the public finances, which w^ere seriously 
affected by the injurious legislation of the British Par- 
liament. 

By an arbitrary act, Parliament dissolved the Bank 
in 1743, which was the chief cause of the monetary 
embarrassment of the elder Adams. 

It was, doubtless, this arbitrary proceeding which 
prompted Samuel Adams to write the startling thesis, 
before mentioned, on receiving his master's degree that 
same year. 

Ten years after his father had been in his grave, and 
seventeen years after the affair had taken place, Mr. 
Adams was greatly startled to read in the Boston News 
Letter of August, 1758, that the property he had inher- 
ited would be sold at auction ''under the hand and seal 
of the Hon. Commissioners for the more speedy finishing 
the Land Bank or Manufactory scheme." 

Mr. Adams gave notice the following week to the 



26 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Sheriff, of his determination to resist any such illegal 
and unwarrantable act. Very prudently this officer 
took no further action, and the estate was undisturbed. 

But the occurrence gave Mr. Adams his first opportu- 
nity to avow openly his opposition to the exercise of ar- 
bitrary Parliamentary rule in the Colony. 

From 1756 to 1764 Samuel Adams was annually elect- 
ed one of the tax collectors. 

The financial difficulties which beset the people on 
every hand, doubtless prevented them from making 
prompt payments. 

But the humanity of Samuel Adams and his want of 
business vigor, made him a very poor tax collector. 
The arrearages in consequence amounted to quite a sum. 

Many of the Tories made this deficiency a ground of 
accusation against the honesty of Mr. Adams. Govern- 
or Hutchinson, in his History, termed it a "defalcation." 

But the candid judgment of those who have thorough- 
ly investigated the matter, is conclusive, that his "ill 
success as a collector was excusable if not unavoidable." 

More than one eminent man has failed in an uncon- 
genial sphere of work, who has achieved a signal suc- 
cess when the proper opportunity has been given him. 
Providence very clearly designed Samuel Adams for 
something else than "sitting at the receipt of custom," 
however important that may be. 

Like Matthew the Publican, "Samuel the Publican," 
as his political adversaries humorously called him, had 
another place to fill as The Apostle of American Free- 
dom. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 27 

The fall of Quebec, through the intrepid General 
Wolfe and his brave command, which meant the des- 
truction of the power of France on this continent had an 
important bearing, in at least two particulars, upon the 
position of affairs in Massachusetts. 

The colonial troops had shown themselves possessed 
of military prowess while 
fighting by the side of the 
regular troops of Great Brit- 
ain against Montcalm. This 
gave them self-confidence — 
' 'the iron string to which all 
hearts vibrate." To it the 
brave, stout hearts of 

"The Continentals 
In their ragged regi- 
mentals," 

vibrated gloriously a few 

years afterwards when they Generauames woife. 

were pitted against the best soldiery of England. 

The seven years war had left the Mother Country with 
an enormous debt. Her victories on land and sea over 
her enemies had brought into her possession all French 
America and all India. 

To maintain her naval supremacy which she had won, 
particularly over her defeated rival, France, meant a 
vast financial responsibility. 

Grenville, then the prime minister, began to exact 
vigorously the neglected customs and imposts. 

The contraband trade which had been carried on be- 




28 SAMUKL ADAMS. 

tweeii the New England ports and the French West In- 
dies was serionsly cnrtailed. 

This trade, which was really sningglino-, was an al)- 
solnte necessity to the colonists, on acconnt of the nn- 
jnst restrictions which Parliament had i)nt np(jn thcni, 
by demanding that all commerce shonld pass directly 
through English hands. 

''Writs of assistance," as they were termed, were or- 
dered by Grenville for use in America. By these writs, 
authority was granted to the officers of customs, giving 
them authority to search the houses of persons suspected 
of smuggling. 

This intrusion into private houses w^as considered a 
great outrage, and the people indignantly resented it. 

James Otis, the younger, was at this time the official 
adviser of the government as Advocate-general, an hon- 
orable and lucrative position. It was his duty as a 
crown officer to defend the case of the officers of cus- 
toms. He, however, refused to do so, and at once re- 
signed his commission. 

He took the part of the colonists, and in this most 
memorable period in America's history became one of 
its foremost characters. 

The thrilling speech he delivered on this occasion has 
been preserved for us in the notes taken by John Adams, 
who was present with Samuel Adams on that eventful 
day. For nearly five hours the learned, bold and eloquent 
orator was on his feet. In impassioned language he de- 
nounced taxation without representation, — the future 
watchwords of the American cause; for from that day, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 29 

^'Taxation without representation is tyranny," was the 
rallying cry of the masses of the people. 

Early in 1765 Grenville introduced into Parliament 
the Stamp Act bill, notice of which had been given 
some time before. While in some portions of the colon- 
ies the prospective scheme had not been received with 
disfavor, it met in Boston the most determined opposi- 
tion. One year before Patrick Henry's famous Virginia 
Resolutions appeared, which set all the country in a 
blaze, Samuel Adams had given his views upon this 
crucial question. 

On the twenty-fourth of May, 1764, he submitted to 
the town meeting of Boston a paper which contained 
the first public denial of the right of Parliament to put 
the Stamp Act scheme into effect. 

It is the first public document that can be directly 
traced to his pen, although there is not the slightest 
doubt that he had written in the same direction before. 

On a paper yellow with age, in a neat, firm hand- 
writing, we can read the very opening sentences of the 
great book of Freedom, which America was so soon to 
write by her statesmen and heroes for all the world to 
read. Adams says: 

"If taxes are laid upon us in any .shape without our 
having a legal representation where they are laid, are 
we not reduced from the Character of Free Subjects to 
the miserable state of tributary Slaves ? We claim Brit- 
ish rights not by charter only ! we are born to them." 

The same document contained the first suggestion of 
a union of the colonies for the redress of their grievances 



30 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



in the instructions given. It reads as follows: 

"As his Majesty's other Northern American Colonies 
are embarked with us in this most important Bottom, 
we further desire you to use your Endeavors that their 
weight may be added to that of this Province ; that by 
the united Application of all who are Aggrieved, all 
may happily attain Redress." 

One of the measures proposed by the crown w^as to 

pay the Judges out 
of the royal treasury, 
instead of having 
them paid as hereto- 
fore by the general 
Assembly. This 
would have made the 
judiciary the mere 
creatures of the king. 
Samuel Adams as- 
serted in this histor- 
ical paper the impor- 
tant position that the 
judges should con- 
tinue to be depend- 
ent for their salaries upon the Assembly. 

He also intimated that if the proper measures were 
not taken, it would be deemed necessary to import no 
goods from Britain, in order to retaliate upon British 
manufacturers. 

At this period Adams was forty- two years of age, in 
the very prime of life, although his hair was beginning 




Old State House, Boston, in front of which 
occurred the "Boston Massacre." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 3^ 

to turn gray. He had also a kind of tremulousness of 
the head and hands, which seemed to indicate the ad- 
vance of a premature old age. But he had not impaired 
his constitution with any excesses. His frame was as 
sound as oak. There was no tremulousness in his heart 
every beat of which was for the liberties of the people. 

He had met with misfortunes. Business had failed. 
His patrimony had nearly all gone. Death had invaded 
his home. His fair fame was under a cloud on account 
of his arrearages as tax collector. But he had a mind 
conscious of rectitude, a sublime faith in God, and an 
unfaltering hope in the future. So without desponden- 
cy and full of cheer he continued in his noble career. 

When the legislature met in June, 1764, James Otis 
prepared a memorial to be sent to the agent of the col- 
ony in England, containing almost the very words of 
the suggestions of Samuel Adams. This memorial was 
to be given to the English public. 

Following also the spirit of the instructions contained 
in the document prepared by Adams, a committee was 
appointed to send an address to the Assemblies of the 
sister colonies, advising united action to maintain their 
common rights. 

On December 6, 1764, Samuel Adams married for his 
second wife Elizabeth Wells, daughter of Francis Wells, 
Esq., an English merchant. This gentleman had come 
over, some years before, in his own ship, ^^ye Hampstead 
galley," with his family and possessions. 

The second Mrs. Adams was in every respect a help- 
meet to her husband, walking side by side with him 



32 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

through forty years of an eventful life. She was a wom- 
an of refinement and culture, full of sympathy and 
warm appreciation. With all her other accomplishments, 
she possessed a genuine New England genius for econo- 
my, making the best possible use of a slender income. 

As Prof. Hosmersays: "It indeed required no common 
virtue to do this, for while Samuel Adams superintended 
the birth of the child Independence, he was quite care- 
less how the table at home was spread, and as to the 
condition of his own children's clothes and shoes. 
More than once his family would have become ob- 
jects of charity if the hands of his wife had not been 
ready and skilful." 

Mrs. Adams maintained a hospitable, genial home, 
where no stranger ever dreamed that any essential com- 
forts of life were missing. 

George the Third, turning his back upon Pitt, list- 
ened to the advice of Bute, who has been termed an un- 
principled Scotch adventurer. Through him the Sugar 
Bill was re-enacted, which imposed a duty upon sugar, 
coffee, indigo and the like, imported into the colonies 
from the West Indies. 

This was followed by the passage of the Stamp Act, 
Grenville's scheme, which declared that no legal in- 
strument of writing should be valid unless it bore a 
government stamp. Among its provisions were the 
charge of two pounds sterling for a diploma or certifi- 
cate of a college degree. 

Beckford, Conway, Jackson and Col. Barre strenuous- 
ly opposed Grenville and his measure in Parliament. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



33 



The speech of Col. Barre on this occasion, is a marvel 
of fervid eloquence, and known to every American 
school boy of proper age and training. 

The passage of the Bill was the entering wedge which 
severed the colonies from allegiance to the throne. 

In Virginia the indignant utterances of Patrick Henry 




Auchmuty House, Boston. Associated with Stamp Act. Safety 
Committee met here. 

burst forth, which were like the blasts of a martial 
trumpet sounding the approaching Revolution. 

The excitement was intense in Boston, and the indig- 
nation in the Province beyond words to express. 

A riot broke out on the twelfth of August, in which 
the infuriated people burnt in effigy I^ord Bute and Oli- 



34 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

ver, the Stamp distributor, besides doing damage to 
property. 

Samuel Adams and his compatriots promptly de- 
nounced these proceedings, but with unwavering deter- 
mination opposed the execution of the obnoxious act. 

Mr. Adams drew up the fourteen Resolves of the 
Boston Assembly, affirming the unlawfulness of the ac- 
tion of Parliament, and asserting the inalienable rights 
of the colonists as British subjects. 

These were termed by the king's minions in England, 
"the ravings of a parcel of wild enthusiasts," but they 
made a profound impression on the whole Province. 

Gloom and despondency settled over Massachusetts. 
Business was at a stand still. But still the people would 
not yield. Newspapers bore a death's head in the place 
where a stamp was required by law. 

At length, in England, early in January, 1766, a bill 
was introduced into the House of Commons for the re- 
peal of the Act. William Pitt, Col. Barre and Edmund 
Burke supported the measure. The latter statesman 
made his first appearance as the champion of the right, 
and won, by his marvelous eloquence, an abiding place 
in the hearts of the American people. 

On the eighteenth of March, 1766, the Stamp Act 
was repealed, and the warehouses of London were illu- 
minated, and the shipping in the Thames made gay 
with flags. 

The welcome news of the repeal of the Stamp Act 
reached Boston on the i6th of May, 1766. The rejoic- 
ing was most enthusiastic. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



35 



The ships in the harbor were gaily decorated with 
their colors. Guns were continuously fired. Blazing 
bonfires were kindled. The church bells poured out 




I The TIMES arc 
JDrecsbliiJ 
TUoIct«l 
DolLia-LES 



•Umiiy, Othier^i. I165 THE ^^'^ " '^ 

PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL; 

AND 

WEEKLY ADVERTISER. 



EXP IRl NG: in Hopes of a Returrectiontc Lite a^aia. 



□ am forry to be 
obliged to ac- 
quaint my read- 
ers that as the 
Stamp Act is 
feared to be obligatory 
upon us after the jirft of 
November ensuing (The 
Fatal To-morrow), The 
publifherofthis paper, un- 
able to bear the Burthen, 
has thought it expedient 
to ftop awhile, in order to 



deliberate, whether any 
methods can be found to 
elude the chains forged for 
us, and efcape the infup- 
portable f lavcry, which it 
is hoped, from the laft 
reprelentation now made 
again ft that act, may be 
effected. Mean while I 
muft earneftly Requeft 
every individual of my 
Subrcribers. many of 
whom hava been long be- 



hind Hand, that they 
would immediately dif- 
charge their refpective 
Arrears, that I may be 
ab!<?, not only to fui)port 
myfelf during the Inter- 
val but be better prepar- 
ed to proceed again with 
this Paper whenever an 
opening for that purpofe 
appears, which I hope 
will be foon. 
WILLIAM BRADFORD. 



Reduced Fac-Slmile of the Pennsylvania Journal, wltli emblematic 

heading, published October 31, 1765, following the 

passage of the Stamp Act. 

their joyous peals. Bands of music played in the street. 
Steeples and housetops were adorned with flags. Salvos 
of artillery boomed from Fort Williams. Fireworks 
surpassing anything before known in New England 
were set off on the common. Men, women and children 
were thrilled with the excitement of the occasion. 

They were ''mad with loyalty," said Samuel Adams, 



36 SAML'KL ADAMS. 

speakint^ afterwards of the occasion. lUit this far see- 
ing patriot did not share the exultation of the Boston 
people. There was a sting in the repeal. 

In the Declaratory Act was contained the statement 
that Parliament had the authority "to bind the Colonies 
and people of America in all cases whatsoever." Pitt 
himself, in order to carry the bill, inserted this condi- 
tion. Adams knew that serious trouble was sure to arise 
in the days to come, when the king should assert in other 
ways the principle thus laid down. It did come. 

Pitt and Camden had gained the admiration of the 
colonists for their brave and powerful denunciation of 
the Stamp Act. But these men had made a distinction 
between taxation and legislation. 

They held that while Parliament could not tax, it 
could legislate. But Samuel Adams stood firm on the 
principle that the Parliament had no power whatever to 
interfere in the affairs of the Provinces. They owed al- 
legiance to the king, but not to the Parliament. They 
were thus prepared to meet with continued opposi- 
tion the measures already being devised by the Par- 
liamentary leaders to oppress the colonists. 

When the election for representatives was held in 
Boston, in May, 1766, Samuel Adams, Thomas Cush- 
ing, James Otis, and a new member destined to play an 
important part in the coming days, were chosen. 

This member was John Hancock. Just preceding the 
election a Mr. John Rowe, an influential merchant, who 
had been active on the side of liberty, was talked of for 
the fourth member. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 37 

Samuel Adams very skilfully lumiiiialed another per- 
son, by asking, with his eyes looking in the direction of 
Mr. Hancock's house, 

"Is there not another John that may do better ?" 

The hint took. 

My. Hancock had been left with a vast fortune for 
those days, amounting to more than $350,000. Adams 
knew that such a man, backed by such an inheri- 
tance, would be of great benefit to the struggling cause. 

He knew, also, of the commanding influence that a 
person of Mr. Hancock's dignified bearing and engaging 
manners would exert upon the people. Mr. Adams 
never lost an opportunity of bringing forward I^Ir. Han- 
cock to popular notice, and of helping him to win 
official position. 

Another important accession was made this year to 
the Assembly in the person of Joseph Hawley, from 
Northampton, Connecticut. 

He was a man of great purity of character and of 
keen intellect. He also possessed a profound knowledge 
of legal affairs which was of marked benefit to the patri- 
otic movement. 

Samuel Adams and Hawley were fast friends, thor- 
oughly appreciating one another, and mutually helpful 
in the arduous work they had in hand. 

While Thomas Gushing was annually chosen speaker, 
Samuel Adams was made clerk. This position gave 
him about a hundred pounds a year, which meager sti- 
pend was often his only means of support. 

And while James Otis was still the idol of the people, 



38 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Samuel Adams was the patient, persevering, ever watch- 
ful leader. His conspicuous ability in drafting docu- 
ments became more and more apparent, and not a paper 
of any note was put forth which was not written by his 
pen. 

During the debates in the Assembly, Hawley took the 
position of a bold and far-seeing statesman. 

He said, "The Parliament of Great Britain has no 
right to legislate for us." 

James Otis at once rose in his seat, and bowing to- 
wards Hawley, exclaimed, "He has gone farther than I 
have yet done in this house." But Hawley was only 
affirming, as we have seen, the sentiments which Samuel 
Adams for some time had held. 

Out of the egg of tyranny, which Mr. Adams had 
known to be concealed in the "declaratory act," was to 
come forth a brood of obnoxious measures which were to 
rouse the colonies to open revolt. 

Townshend, a brilliant, but an unscrupulous and un- 
wise statesman, brought forth a bill in Parliament, as 
before noticed, for levying . duties upon tea, glass, paper, 
painter's colors etc., which should be imported by the 
colonies. 

The indignation which had flamed out against the 
Stamp Act again broke forth. 

Josiah Quincy, twenty-three years of age, said with 
the impetuosity of youth, 

"IvCt us make an armed resistance against the minis- 
try." 

"No," said Samuel Adams, "we are not prepared for 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 39 

that. We will do something better. We will neither 
import nor consume any British product." 

Adams prepared a remarkable series of papers during 
the winter of 1767-8, maintaining his position. 




Faneuil Hall, Boston. 

A Circular I^etter, of which he was the real author, 
although it has been claimed James Otis wrote it, was 
sent to "Each House of Representatives or Burgesses on 
the Continent." 

Lord Hillsborough, the English Secretary of State for 
the American Department, wrote to have the measure 
rescinded. He declared it to be "a flagitious attempt to 
disturb the public peace." 



40 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

General Gage, commander of the Royal troops in 
America, was significantly directed "to maintain the 
public tranquility." 

But the Assembly did not rescind their action. The 
people would not buy and use English goods. They 
would not pay the duties that were imposed. 

A sloop, owned by Mr. Hancock, was seized for not 
complying with the revenue laws. The collector, comp- 
troller and inspector were roughly handled by an infuri- 
ated concourse of people, and a serious riot was barely 
avoided. 

A great crowd gathered in Faneuil Hall, and over- 
flowed to the Old South. James Otis was received with 
a storm of applause, and made moderator by acclama- 
tion. He electrified the surging thousands w^ith his 
magnificent eloquence, declaiming against the wrongs in- 
flicted upon them, and against the appearance of the Eng- 
lish manofwar,"J?w;2;/^jK,"wdiich was then in the /larbor. 

One man. Governor Bernard, was very largely respon- 
sible for the evil consequences of the untimely a.nd un- 
just actions of the English Parliament. While he un- 
doubtedly had many good qualities, and while allowance 
must be made for his early training and surroundings, 
he was clearly guilty of falsification and of stirring up 
needless strife. 

He was a graduate of Oxford, a warm friend of Har- 
vard College, an elegant scholar, and a charming con- 
versationalist. Up could com]><)Se elegies in Latin and 
Greek, and repeat from memorv, on his own statement, 
the whole of Shakespeare. He was as fond of science 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 41 

as of literature. But he was as much out of place as 
Governor of I^Iassachusetts as "a Cardinal's hat in a 
Quaker meeting house." 

There was no harmony whatever between him and 
the common people. He hated thoroughly republican 
institutions. He contemptuously termed the local self- 
government "a trained mob." 

He saw in every movement of the people an effort to 
shake off allegiance to the English crown, when all that 
was meant was a due assertion of their inherent rights as 
English subjects. 

The most persistent and unscrupulous misrepresenta- 
tions were made by him and his political friends for 
years to the king and Parliament, regarding the alleged 
traitorous designs of "the pestilent Bostonians," whom 
they continually called "anarchists and rebels." 

Bernard referred to Samuel Adams, John Hancock 
and others, as "the faction which harasses this town; and 
through it the whole continent is directed by three or 
four persons, bankrupts in reputation as well as proper- 
ty." 

While he was writing to England that these malcon- 
tents were stirring up the populace to riots and treason- 
able acts, Adams and his compatriots, with the new 
grievances and fresh aggressions in the passage of the 
Revenue Acts of 1767 to contend with, were doing all 
in their power to restrain their followers from lawless 
deeds. 

They sent the word through the ranks, regarding the 
obnoxious revenue officials, "Let there be no mobs, no 



42 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

riots. Let not the hair of their scalps be touched." 

No Englishman loved the old flag more than they. 
The history of the mother country was their history. 
Its glory was their glory. The English constitution 
was the aegis of their rights and liberties, both civil and 
religious. 

They had no desire for separation,- least of all any ex- 
pectation of it. 

No man had a profounder respect for the Constitu- 
tion, and a more ardent attachment to the land of his 
ancestors, than Samuel Adams. Early in 1768 he uttered 
these strong words which, we must believe, came from 
the depths of a sincere soul: 

"I pray God that harmony may be cultivated between 
Great Britain and the Colonies, and that they may long 
flourish in one undivided empire." 

It was liberty within the sacred law of England for 
which he strove. 

But very soon after this he completely changed his 
views. Samuel Adams has been charged by the Tories 
with duplicity. Professor Hosmer thinks he must have 
had some twinges of conscience, "when at the very time 
in which he had devoted himself body and soul, to 
breaking the link that bound America to England, he 
was coining for this or that body phrases full of rever- 
ence for the king, and rejecting the thought of independ- 
ence." 

But it was the logic of events that hurried him on, 
and made him appear to think one way and act another. 
If the king had yielded there would have been no inde- 




Samuel Adams in Middle Life. 



44 SAMl'i:i. ADAMS. 

pendence. Samuel Adams was but an illustration of Em- 
erson's sayino-, '*No man has a rio-ht to be consistent with 
himself." A consistent man may l)e most inconsistent. 'J'o 
])e consistent with his better self and with the laws of 
the universe, he must change his views with advancing 
knowledge and increasing experience. 

Adams himself vigorously stated his position, when 
the town meeting of Boston had called a convention on 
September 22, 1768, because Governor Bernard had re- 
fused to convene the legislature. 

Otis was absent during the first three days. Some of 
the members began to hold back from the course the 
"Bostoneers" had marked out for them. 

Then said the sturdy pioneer of freedom, "I am /;/ 
fashion and out of fashion as the whim goes. I will 
stand alone. I will oppose this tyranny at the threshold, 
though the fabric of liberty fall, and I perish in its ruins." 

Governor Bernard brought not only the armed vessel 
^^Romney^^^ to the harbor, but also the I4tli and 29th regi- 
ments, which have come down in history as "the Sam 
Adams Regiments," for so they were designated by Lord 
North. 

Their appearance led up to tragic events, and rapidly 
hastened the crisis which Adams clearly foresaw was 
coming. These regiments, seven hundred strong, land- 
ed on a quiet Sabbath morning, and marched to the 
Boston Common with drums beating and colors flying, 
as though entering an enemy's country. 

The people viewed them with indignation and execra- 
tion, as they virtually turned Boston into a camp. Fan- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 45 

eiiil Hall and the State House afforded them quarters, 
with the tents on the common, as the inhabitants refused 
to give them shelter or food. 

Cannon were planted at different points, and sentinels 
challenged the citizens as they passed. 

Samuel Adams wTote the following week to Deberdt, 
in England: 

"The inhabitants preserve their peace and quietness. 
However, they are resolved not to pay their money with- 
out their own consent, and are more than ever deter- 
mined to relinquish every article, however dear, that 
comes from Britain. May God preserve the nation from 
being greatly injured, if not ruined, by the vile ministra- 
tions of wicked men in America." 

An effort was now made by Parliament to revive a 
long obsolete statute of Henry the Eighth, by which the 
ringleaders might be sent to England on the charge of 
treason. 

"The talk is strong of bringing them over and trying 
them by impeachment," wrote Mauduit, from London, 
to Hutchinson. ''Do you write me word of their be- 
iug seized, and I will send you an account of their being 
hanged." 

In the House of Commons Banc stood up, as usual, 
as the defender of American rights. Lord North replied 
that he would never acquiesce in the absurd opinion"that 
all men are equal." 

Burke pronounced the idea of revivi ug that old stat- 
ute as "horrible." He indignantly asked, "Can you 
not trust the juries of that country? If you have not a 



46 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

party among two millions of people, you must either 
change your plans of government, or renounce the col- 
onies forever." 

A majority voted in favor of the resolution on the 
26th of January, 1769. The resolution, however, was 
never carried into effect. 

Parliament at length took off the tax upon all the ar- 
ticles except tea. This, as we shall see, did not pacify 
Samuel Adams and his friends. 

Meanwhile, a great controversy was taking place on 
the whole question at issue. On the anniversary of the 
repeal of the Stamp Act, Samuel Adams madman appeal 
to the Sons of L<iberty, as they had been called since 
Colonel Barre's address in Parliament, in which the 
name had been given them. 

This appeal was found posted on the Liberty Tree in 
Providence, Rhode Island, on the eighteenth of March, 
1769. It was afterwards printed in the papers. 

It was the first public announcement by Mr. Adams 
of a hint at independence. In the closing paragraph he 
says: "I cannot but think that the Conduct of Old England 
towards us may be permitted by Divine Wisdom and or- 
dained by the unsearchable providence of the Almighty, 
for hastening a period dreadful to Great Britain." 

Governor Bernard departed from Boston for England 
amid the rejoicings of the populace, and Ivieutenant 
Governor Hutchinson became the Acting Governor. 

Samuel Adams was a perpetual thorn in his side. 
''Use no tea," said Mr. Adams. "To retain the duty on 
tea means the right to tax the colonies." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 47 

A great meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, where it 
was unanimously resolved to abstain totally from its 
use. Four hundred and ten women, mistresses of house- 
holds, pledged themselves to drink no more tea until the 
revenue act was repealed. A few days later one hun- 
dred and twenty young ladies formed a similar league. 

The first bloodshed took place in Boston on the twen- 
ty-second of February, 1770. A crowd of boys gathered 
round an importer and jeered and taunted him. Some 
one friendly to him fired among them. One boy, Chris- 
topher Gore, who afterwards became Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, was wounded, and another, Christopher Snyder, 
the son of a poor German, was killed. 

The presence of the troops in Boston was a constant 
source of irritation to the people. The Massachusetts 
Assembly refused to appropriate a single dollar for their 
maintenance, and demanded their removal from the city. 
On the second of March, 1770, a rope maker had come 
into collision with a soldier, and struck him. Out of 
this grew a bitter feud between the soldiers and the 
rope makers, in which thty came fo blows. 

On the evening of the fifth of March, a sentinel near 
the custom-house struck, with his musket, a boy who 
had spoken insolently to a captain of the 14th regi- 
ment, as he was walking in the street. 

To a crowd which had collected, the boy pointed out 
his assailant. Immediately a mob made for him, and 
he retreated up the custom-house steps. 

Captain Preston, the officer of the guard, went to the 
rescue of the sentinel with eight armed men. The mob, 



48 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

although they knew the guns were loaded and ready for 
firing, pressed up to their very muzzles, striking them 
with sticks, and at the same time hurling balls of ice 
and imprecations at the soldiers. 

One of the soldiers who was struck fired, and six of 
his companions also discharged their guns. 

The leader of the crowd, a tall and powerful mulatto, 
named Crispus Attucks, and two others were killed, and 
eight wounded. 

The bells of the city rang out an alarm. Thousands 
of infuriated people were gathered in the streets. Shouts 
and cries rent the air. 

Revenge ! revenge ! was on every lip. 

It seemed as though a terrible scene of blood would 
be enacted, which was barely averted by the appear- 
ance of Governor Hutchinson, who promised the multi- 
tude that justice should be done. 

When morning came, Hutchinson was asked by the 
selectmen of Boston to remoxe the troops. He replied, 
as he had before, that he had no power to command 
their removal. 

To Faneuil Hall the people flocked. They filled the 
building, and surged around it in the street. After sol- 
emn and earnest prayer by Dr. Cooper, Samuel Adams 
addres.sed the meeting. A committee of fifteen was ap- 
pointed to demand from Hutchinson their instant re- 
moval. Samuel Adams, though not at the head of the 
committee, was their spokesman. 

Hutchinson yielded enough to say that, though he 
could receive an order from no one but General Gage, 



50 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

he would respect the desire of the magistrates, and, if 
possible, would send one regiment from the city, the 
29th. Back to the meeting, which had assembled in the 
renowned Old South Church, went the committee to 
make their report. The multitudes in the street opened 
for them to pass through, as the cry was uttered, "Make 
way for the Committee." 

Samuel Adams, with bared head and with gray locks, 
although he was but forty-eight, bowed on one side and 
then on the other, and repeated the words: 

"Both regiments or none ! both regiments or none !" 

When the answer of the Ivieutenant Governor had 
been given to the meeting in the church, there went up 
from a thousand tongues in the excited assembly, "Both 
regiments or none !" *'Both regiments or none !" 

Another committee was then chosen, composed of 
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, William Molineaux, 
William Philips, Joseph Warren, Joshua Henshaw and 
Samuel Pemberton. 

This was a band of men worthy of the great occasion, 
in patriotism, ability, wealth and influence. The message 
they were commissioned to bear to Hutchinson was, 
*'Both regiments or none !" 

Although Samuel Adams was second on the commit- 
tee, he was again to be the spokesman. He had won 
the title now of "The Father of America," and it was 
felt that none was better qualified than he to enforce 
their unyielding demands. 

Into the Council Chamber these detennined patriots 
went. Upon its walls hung the full length portraits of 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 51 

Charles the Second, and James the Second, robed in the 
royal ermine, the representatives of the absolutism that 
was soon to pass away. Confronting them were the 
smaller portraits of Belcher and Bradstreet, and Endi- 
cott and Winthrop, the representatives of the reign of 
the common people, soon to begin. 

Before the I^ieutenant Governor and the members of 
his Council, all resplendent with gold and silver lace, 
scarlet cloaks and imposing wigs, surrounded by the 
officers of the British Army and Navy in their brilliant 
uniforms, stood these plainly attired men. 

Plainly attired, with the exception, perhaps, of John 
Hancock, for it is probable "the rich, luxurious chair- 
man did not forget, even on an occasion like this, to set 
off his fine figure with gay velvet and lace, and a gold- 
headed cane." 

Samuel Adams, clearly and calmly, stated the demands 
of the people. "It is the unanimous opinion of the 
meeting that the reply to the vote of the inhabitants in 
the morning is by no means satisfactory ; nothing less 
will satisfy them than a total and immediate removal of 
the troops. ' ' 

Hutchinson had previously intimated, as stated, that 
one regiment — the Twenty-ninth — should be removed. 
This he repeated, adding, "The troops are not subject 
to my authority ; I have no power to remove them.'* 

Drawing himself to his full height, his clear blue eyes 
flashing, with outstretched arm, "which shook slightly 
with the energy of his soul," and gazing steadfastly at 
Hutchinson, Adams replied ; 



52 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

"If }ou have the power to remove one rcgitiient, yoti 
have power to remove both. It is at your peril if )ou 
refuse. The meeting is couiposed of three thousand 
people. They are becoming impatient. A thousand 
men are already arrived from the neighl:)orhood, and the 
whole country is in motion. Night is approaching. 
An immediate answer is expected. Both regiments or 
noncP^ 

The irresolute chief magistrate, surrounded as he was 
by the insignia of power, was no match for the iron man 
of the people. "He quailed before the majesty, the 
greatness of patriotism." The troops were withdrawn. 

Adams said afterwards to James Warren, of Hutchin- 
son : "I observed his knees to tremble. I thought I saw 
his face grow pale, and I enjoyed the sight." 

Hutchinson soon after this became Governor. In 
some of his measures he had secured the sanction of 
Hancock and Otis. But Samuel Adams sturdily refused 
to yield one iota to his views. 

When the patriot cause seemed all imperiled, Adams 
stood like a granite rock for its principles, and used all 
his powders in its defense. He was now writing for the 
newspapers, now earnestly declaiming in the Boston 
Town Meeting, now among the people, talking with 
them face to face, now at the head of his party in the 
House. 

He seemed to be almost omniscient and omnipresent, 
rallying the disheartened, encotn-aging the timid, and 
strengthening the fearful ones, in the American ranks. 

He answered the arguments of Governor Plutchinson 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 53 

for tlie supremacy of the Parliament, in a docnment 
which has ])ecome forever memorable. He foni^ht the 
Governor successfully as to the payment of his own sal- 
ary, and the salaries of the Judges of the Superior Court 
by the Crown, independent of the Provinces. 

He, without doubt, brought to a practical result the 
idea of the intercolonial Committees of Correspondence, 
if he did not wholly originate it. 

As early as 1766, he suggested such a plan to a friend 
in South Carolina, but it was not then feasible. He re- 
turned to it again in 177 1, but although a necessity, the 
time was not yet ripe for it. 

Wlien he urged the measure upon his associates in 
October, 1772, they were not prepared for such an ad- 
vance movement, and tried to dissuade him from it. 
Hancock said it was premature, rash and insufficient. 

Still the patriotic Puritan persevered, and on the 
second of November, 1772, moved at a town meeting in 
Boston that a Committee of Correspondence be appoint- 
ed to consist of twenty-one persons, to correspond with 
the other towns of the Province. 

His plan was to have all the towns in Massachusetts 
engaged in this correspondence, then to have the As- 
sembly adopt the scheme, and invite the other colonies 
to unite in it. 

The resolution was carried, and the Committee ap- 
pointed. On the next day it began its labors under the 
leadership of its moving spirit. 

Before the plan could be submitted to the Provincial 
Assembly, a resolution proposing a general correspond- 



54 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

ence between the colonies was adopted by the General 
Assembly of Virginia. 

Thus Massachusetts and Virginia had the equal honor 
of leading off in this most important action. 

The controversy on the question of the tax on tea still 
continued. The people resolved that the ships which 
brought over the tea should not land. 

The vessels with tea which arrived at New York and 
Philadelphia, went back to England with their cargoes. 
Tea was stored at Charleston, but not a pound was per- 
mitted to be sold. 

In Boston, Governor Hutchinson and his friends de- 
termined to land the tea in defiance of public feeling. 
This resulted in the famous "Boston Tea Party." 

At great mass meetings in Faneuil Hall it was re- 
solved, on motion of Samuel Adams — "The Man of the 
Town Meeting" — that the tea brought to port in the 
several ships should neither be landed nor sold. 

On a cold, moonlight night, on the sixteenth of De- 
cember, a crowd of seven thousand persons filled the 
Old South and the streets adjoining. The Church was 
dimly lighted by candles. The audience packed within, 
were waiting for the report from the Governor on the 
pending questions. It was unfavorable. Then Samuel 
Adams, the moderator, rose, and in a firm voice said: 

"This meeting can do nothing more to save the coun- 
try." They were the preconcerted signal words for what 
was to follow. 

Sixty persons, disguised as Indians, rushed on board 
two vessels in the harbor, laden with tea. These "Mo- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 55 

hawks" tore open the hatches, and, in the course of two 
hours, broke open three hundred and forty-two chests of 
tea, and threw their contents into the water. 



Ijong Wharf. Scene of the Destruction of Tea, Hosion Harbor. 

A recent historian has said, there is nothing i v our 
annals "of which an educated American shoul 1 feel 
more proud," than the event of which the words of 
Samuel Adams were the signal, "This meeting can do 
nothing more to save the country." 

There is a story told, that when the "Mohawks" 
marched back through the town to the stirring music of 
the fife and drum, they jocosely accosted Admiral Mon- 
tague, who was lodging in town. 

He answered them gruffly in return, and said: 

"Well, boys, you've had a fine, pleasant even'ng for 



56 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

your Indian caper, haven't you? But mind, you've got 
to pay the fiddler yet." 

"Oh, never mind ! old Admiral !" shouted Pitt, the 
leader, "never mind, squire; just come out here, if you 
please, and we'll settle the bill in two minutes." 

The admiral did not go out. 

The ministry resolved to punish Boston severely for 
the destruction of the tea. The act affected unfavorably 
even the faithful Colonel Barre. It may have been that 
vsomething a little stronger than tea had been imbibed 
by him, when he rose in Parliament to make an address, 
in which he said: 

"I think Boston ought to be punished. She is your 
oldest Son.''^ Tlie report said, "Here the House laughed," 
and we now langli with it. But the good Colonel was 
very soon, and ever afterwards, on the right side. 

The Parliament now passed the Boston Port Bill, by 
which that harbor was closed to commerce of all kinds, 
(knernor Hutchinson having resigned, went to Ivngland 
where he was well received. Along with some unenvia- 
ble traits in his character, he evinced many that were 
most admirable. He tried to serve two masters — the 
King and the American people — to the best of his ability. 
Hence, he tried the impossible, and in consequence 
failed, (jcneral Gage succeeded him, and presented in 
his mild temper and mediocre ability, a marked contrast 
to his predecessor. 

The Governor received word from the ministry to 
bring to punishment the leaders in the tea movement 
for High Treason. Samuel Adams was specially desig- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 57 

nated as one who should be immediately apprehended. 
But the Governor did not deem it prudent, for the time 
being, to resort to such an extreme measure. 

Meanwhile Mr. Adams was working heart and soul 
wdth the Committee of Correspondence, to prepare for 
the Congress, which had been proposed by Virginia, and 
which was also his own cherished and daring purpose. 
Governor Gage had prorogued the General Court from 
Boston to Salem, where it met early in June. 

The Tories who were present at this Assembly con- 
ducted themselves in a most offensive manner towards 
the patriots, being emboldened by the presence in the 
town of General Gage and his attendant soldiers. 

One of their number, richly dressed in a gold-laced 
coat, with frills and other adornments, was sitting in the 
chair which Samuel Adams w^as to occupy as clerk. 

When Mr. Adams entered he showed no disposition to 
vacate it. 

"Mr. Speaker, where is the place for your clerk ?'' 
said Mr. Adams, looking hard at the interloper and his 
friends about liiuL 

The Speaker pointed to the desk and chair. 

"Sir," said ]\Ir. Adams, "my company will not be 
pleasant to the gentlemen who occupy it. I trust they 
will remove to another part of the house." 

They removed. * 

Mr. Adams had carefully prepared the way for the 
election of delegates to meet the delegates of other Col- 
onial Assemblies on the first of vSeptcmber, at Philadel- 
phia, or some other place to be agreed upon. 



58 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

With consummate skill he had lulled the Tory oppo- 
sition to sleep. 

On the seventeenth of June, one hundred and twenty- 
nine members were present. A resolution was present- 
ed to appoint James Bowdoin, Thomas Gushing, Samuel 
Adams, John Adams and Robert Treat Paine as such 
delegates. 

Instantly the House was in a great uproar. Strenu- 
ous efforts were made by opponents to stave off the pro- 
ceedings. Some of the Tory members attempted to 
leave the Hall. Samuel Adams went to the door, locked 
it, and put the key in his pocket. 

One of these Tory members, however, on the plea of 
sickness, managed to get out, and at once informed 
General Gage of what was going on. The Governor 
hurriedly prepared a message of prorogation and sent it 
by his Secretary. Thundering at the door the Secretary, 
Thomas Flucker, Esq., demanded admission in vain. 
After the election had taken place, he was permitted to 
enter and read the message. 

But "the horse was stolen, and General Gage locked 
the barn door with great vigor." 

A critical moment in affairs soon after came, when a 
great town meeting was held in Boston, to consider 
whether it would not be best to make a small concession 
to the Crown, "like payment for the tea, with an admis- 
sion that its destruction had been a mistake." Even 
Josiah Quincy and Benjamin Franklin thought such a 
step would be proper and desirable. 

But Samuel Adams, with an unyielding will carried 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



59 



the day, and, by a large majority, the meeting deter- 
mined that they would continue "steadfast in the way of 
well-doing." 

Samuel Adams now went about as a proscribed man. 
His friends were in constant fear of his arrest, and of his 
prominent supporters. He was urged on every hand to 
be on his guard. But Gage took no action, feeling that 
any attempt at seizure now w^ould be very imprudent. 

The efforts made to bribe Mr. Adams by great gifts 
and advancements which were freely offered were re- 
jected by him with indignation and scorn. 

Neither threats nor coaxings could make him swerve 
in the least. It were 
easier to turn the 
sun from his course 
than this Fabrician 
hero from the path 
of honor. 

Samuel Adams, ac- 
companied by the 
three delegates, who 
were to represent 
Massachusetts, met 
in the historic Car- 
penter's Hall, Philadelphia, on the fifth of Septem- 
ber, 1774. Fifty-three delegates were in attendance. 
From among their number Peyton Randolph, of Vir- 
ginia, was chosen as chairman, and Charles Thomson, 
Secretary. "Samuel Adams was, without doubt, the 
most conspicuous, and also the most dreaded, member 




The State House, Philadelphia, in 1776. 
From an Old Print of the Period, 



60 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

of that body." He was known to be a marked object 
tor tlie vengeance of the king, and to be radical in his 
political views. 

At the beginning^ of the session, however, he made a 
masterly stroke of policy, by movino that the Rev. Mr. 
Duche, an Episcopal clergyman of Philadelphia, shonld 
offer prayer. When it is remembered that Samnel Ad- 
ams was the sternest of Pnritans, and hated prelacy with 
a perfect hatred, we can realize the depth of his devotion 
to the pnblic good. Professor Hosmer says: "P^ew acts 
in his career, probably, cost him a greater sacrifice, 
and few acts were really more effective. If Prynne, in 
the Long Parliament, had asked for the prayers of Land, 
the sensation conld not have been greater. It electrified 
friends and foes. Before such a stretch of catholicity, 
the members became ashamed of their divisions, and a 
spirit of harmony, quite new and beyond measure, salu- 
tary, came to prevail." 

Mr. Adams' influence was great in this Congress. 
Galloway, an able lawyer, who had just before been 
Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly, says: 

"Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, 
and thinks much, and is most indefatigable in the pur- 
suit of his object. It was this man who, by his superior 
application, managed at once the faction in the Congress 
at Philadelphia, and the faction in New England." 

His great wisdom was conspicuous in appearing to 
surrender the leadership to others, in order to win them 
over to the views for which he and New England stood. 
In Patrick Henry and the Lees of Virginia, he found 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 6! 

congenial spirits, who heartily seconded him in his com- 
prehensive plans. 

The several State papers, embracing the Declaration 
of Rights which this Congress pnt forth, were marked 
by snch profound wisdom and signal ability, that they 
elicited the enthusiastic approbation of the Earl of 
Chatham. He said in the House of Lords: 

"I must declare and avow that in all my reading and 
study of history— (and it has been my favorite study — I 
have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired 
the master states of the world) — that for solidity of 
reasoning, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclusion, 
under such a complication of circumstances, no nation 
or body of men can stand in preference to the general 
Congress at Philadelphia." 

This Congress manifested conserv^atism, decorum, 
firmness and loyalty. It was not prepared to take the 
advanced steps Sauuiel Adams was prepared to take, but 
it gave general satisfaction to the American people. 
When Congress adjourned it was to meet on the twenti- 
eth of May following, 1775. 

Before the next meeting some most important events 
were to occur. 

On the sixth of March, 1775, Warren delivered his 
great oration on the fifth celebration of the Boston mas- 
sacre in the Old South. 

Three hundred soldiers from the eleven regiments 
which Gage now had in Boston, were there. Samuel 
Adams, who was the moderator of the meeting, invited 
them all to take front seats. 



62 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

During the delivery of the address Warren noticed 
that a British officer seated on the pulpit stairs held up 
in his open palm a number of pistol balls. Without 
breaking in the least his flow of language, Warren quiet- 
ly dropped his handkerchief upon them. 

It is almost marvelous that an outbreak did not result. 
But if the troops were not prepared to charge, neither 
was the wise and prudent Adams ready for any prema- 
ture movement. 

But he had, in every manner possible, been getting 
ready for the inevitable struggle. With his patriotic 
friends he had been urging the colonists to practice daily 
in military exercises, to manufacture arms and gunpow- 
der, and to enroll companies of militia, which were to be 
ready at a moment's notice to respond on the call of 
danger. 

These were the minute 7nen^ who very soon were to 
march so triumphantly into history. 

General Gage, after the meeting of the Provincial 
Congress of Massachusetts (the first in America), which 
made elaborate preparations to raise an army to meet 
with armed resistance the aggression of the king, deter- 
mined to arrest Hancock and Adams. He had been 
urged by letters from England to do this at once, and as re- 
inforcements of soldiers were now on the way, he deemed 
the fit time had come to seize these arch-enemies of the 
crown. 

Adams and Hancock, for greater safety, had gone to 
lycxington, and were stopping at the house of the Rev. 
Jonas Clark, in that village. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



63 



Late in the evening of the eighteenth of April, 1775, 
Gage secretly despatched eight hundred men, under the 
command of Lieutenant Col. Smith and Major Pitcairn, to 
Lexington, to lay hold upon the patriots, and also to 




Buckman Tavern, Lexington, Mass. Headquarters of the Minute Men. 

destroy the ammunition which the colonists had collect- 
ed together at Concord, a few miles from Lexington. 

Around the house of Mr. Clark were a sergeant and 
eight men, belonging to Jonas Parker's company of mil- 
itia, which had marched to Lexington Green. 

But General Gage had been again outwitted. He 
thought the going of the regulars would be a complete 
surprise to Adams, Hancock and all the rest. But Wil- 
liam Dawes and Paul Revere rode with all speed to Lex- 



64 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



ington, and spread the alarm tliroiijjh all the country. 
From the signal lanterns in the belfry of the old North 
Church the lights flashed out, to warn the country 
around. 

Paul Revere galloped up to Clark's house about one 




ClarU House. Lexington, where Adams and Hancook were when notified 
by Paul Revere of the coming of the British. 

o'clock in the morning of the 19th, and found the guards 

without and the people within fast asleep. 

"Wake up! wake up!" he shouted. "Wake up!" 
''Don't make so much noise," said the Sergeant, 

"you'll disturb the family." 

"Noise!" cried Paul Revere, "you'll have noise enough 

before long. The regulars are coming out." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 65 

Adams and Hancock hastily rose, ran out, and made 
their way across the fields to Woburn. 

Immediately afterwards, Pitcairn with the advance 
guard reached Lexington. 

Seventy men were drawn up to oppose him. 

Pitcairn rode forward, and shouted with a strong ex- 
pletive, 

"Disperse! disperse! disperse, you rebels! Down with 
your arms and disperse. '' 

They refused to obey. The order to fire was given. 
Eight citizens were killed and many wounded. 

The war for liberty was begim. 

The Americans had "put the enemy in the wrong." 
The regulars had fired first. Lexington's sad green was 
stained with the first blood of the Revolution. But as 
the firing was heard by the two escaping men, Adams 
stopped, threw up his arms, and exclaimed in a voice of 
patriotic rapture, "Oh, what a glorious morning for 
America is this!" 

It was a glorious morning, for it witnessed the display 
of great moral sublimity in the stand these few noble 
men took, believing themselves to be in the right, 
against the greatest power on the globe. 

Well does George William Curtis say: 

"American valor a hundred years ago is as consecrat- 
ing as Greek valor twenty centuries ago. 

"What was there in the cause or character of the heroes 
which should make Marathon or Plateo more romantic 
than Lexington or Concord ? 

"Leonidas and the Greeks stood in the pass at Ther- 



66 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

mopylae: John Parker and his townsmen on Lexington 
Green. 

"They both stood for liberty and for us. 

"Yet how many a youth who dreams of old renown, 
and burns to see the fields that brave men have immor- 
talized, remembers that here at hand in his own country, 
he has the scene of all that kindles his imagination. 

* 'How is Leonidas nobler, or more poetic, than the 
minute man who lives forever in the noble statue of 
French fronting the old bridge ? 

"In the final, consecrating grace of any scene upon the 
globe, namely, the display of the highest human hero- 
ism, our own soil is as rich as any upon which the sun 
shines." 

While Samuel Adams believed that with the battles 
of Lexington and Concord the Revolution had really 
begun, others did not: He knew the struggle would not 
be an easy one. Suffering and hardship must inevitably 
come. But he was prepared for any sacrifices, for he 
felt convinced that the Americans would succeed if they 
remained true to their cause. 

"For my own part," he had written long before this, 
"I have been wont to converse with poverty; and, how- 
ever disagreeable a companion she may be thought to be 
by the afiluent and luxurious, who were never acquaint- 
ed with her, I can live happily with her the remainder 
of my life, if I can thereby contribute to the redemption 
of my country." 

Samuel Adams found himself still alone among the 
leading statesmen of America, when he again took his 



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68 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

seat ill the Continental Con,^:rcss on the nineteenth of 
May, 1775, and advocated tlie entire independence of the 
Colonies. Even John Adams and Thomas Jefferson 
were not ready for snch a step. 

These, with the rest of the delegates, were looking for 
conciliation, compromise, and a restoration of the state 
of things existing before the dispntes began. 

By many, Samnel Adams was looked npon ''as a des- 
perate and fanatical adventnrer with nothing to lose, 
and his advocacy of a scheme was often an injury to it/ 
It took time before jnstice conld be done both to his 
character and repntation. 

John Adams also snffered a good deal of odium, and 
was very sensitive in consequence; but his kinsman paid 
but little attention to what he knew were unjust impu- 
tations, and went on his way unmoved. 

The Presidency of the Continental Congress was given 
to John Hancock, upon the retirement of Peyton Ran- 
dolph from the chair, to attend the session of the Vir- 
ginia Legislature. 

This great honor, conferred both upon Massachusetts 
and Hancock, was secured by the untiring labor of both 
the Adamses. These two men also brought about the 
the most important action of the Continental Congress 
in the appointment of Washington as Commander-in- 
Chief of the army. 

John Adams made the nomination and Samuel Adams 
seconded it. John Hancock was greatly disappointed, 
for, it would seem, he had expected the position for 
himself. John Adams thus describes what took place: 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 69 

"When Congress had assembled I rose in my place. 

Mr. Washington, who happened to sit near the 

door, as soon as he heard me allude to him, from his 
usual modesty, darted into the library-room. 

"]\Ir. Hancock heard me with visible pleasure, but 
when I came to describe Washington for the commander, 
I never remarked a more sudden and striking change of 
countenance. Mortification and resentment were ex- 
pressed as forcibly as his face could exhibit them. IMr. 
Samuel Adams seconded the motion, and that did not 
soften the president's physiognomy at all." 

On the fifteenth of June, 1775, George Washington 
was duly elected by a unanimous vote on the formal 
motion of Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, Commander- 
in-Chief. 

General Gage, on the twelfth of June, 1775, issued a 
proclamation, declaring all Americans in arms to be 
rebels and traitors, and oflTering a free pardon to all, ex- 
cepting ''Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose 
Offences arc of too flagitious a Nature to admit of any 
other Consideration than that of condign Punishment." 

On the seventeenth of June, 1775, occurred the fa- 
mous battle of Bunker Hill, in which there was abso- 
lutely no victory for either side. 

In this engagement Dr. Warren fell. He had just 
been appointed Major General, and was killed by a mus- 
ket ball soon after the enemy had scaled the redoubt on 
Breed's Hill, as it was termed. He was the man wdioni 
Samuel Adams is believed to have loved above all others. 

He wrote as follows to his wife from Philadelphia, 



70 SAMUEL ADAiviS. 

when the news reached him: "The Death of our truly 
amiable and worthy Friend, Dr. Warren, is great afflict- 
ing; the Language of Friendship is, how shall we resign 
him; but it is our Duty to submit to the Dispensations 
of Heaven, 'whose ways are ever gracious, ever just.^ 
He fell in the glorious Struggle for public Liberty." 

On the re-interment of Warren, after the British evac- 
uation, the orator said: ''Their kindred souls were so in- 
tertwined, that both felt one joy, both one affliction." 

The sorrow Adams felt at the loss of his beloved 
friend, was buried deep in his heart, though his usual 
reticence did not permit him to pour forth in impas- 
sioned words his grief to his fellow men. 

Through the influence of Samuel and John Adams, 
Charles Lee was appointed second in command to Wash- 
ington, which action afterwards proved to be a very 
great mistake. Lee, to say the least of him, was "an 
eccentric, selfish marlplot, who so nearly wrecked the 
cause he assumed to uphold." 

After the Battle of Bunker Hill, in July, 1775, Con- 
gress sent a most loyal petition to the king, along with 
a conciliatory address to the people of Great Britain. 

But they firmly announced, "We have counted the 
cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as vol- 
untary slavery." The ring of Samuel Adams' deter- 
mination was heard in these stirring words. 

On the first of August, 1775, the Continental Con- 
gress adjourned to meet again on the fifth of September 
following. Samuel Adams, the proscribed patriot, set 
out with his fellow delegates for Boston. 



72 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

He was at once made Secretary of State, but leaving 
his public functions in the hands of a deputy, lie set out 
on the twelfth of September for Philadelphia, riding 
three hundred miles on horseback. 

Adams found the jealousy towards New England, 
greater than ever on the part of the Proprietary and 
some of the Southern Colonies. As there seemed but 
little prospect of a declaration of independence on their 
part, he began to conceive the idea of separate indepen- 
dence for New England, believing if this were accom- 
plished, complete independence of all the rest might af- 
terwards follow. 

Then came days of weary waiting and severe trial. 
Hancock turned his back upon the two Adam.scs, and 
affiliated with the aristocratic members from the middle 
and southern colonies. The battle became a fierce one on 
the subject so dear to the heart of Samuel Adams — the 
independence of the colonies. 

John Adams, who had come round to SamueVs way 
of thinking, was absent. Hancock, Gushing and Paine 
would render no help, and so almost alone, the heroic 
New Englander had to carry on the struggle. But he 
gained, as adherents, a few advanced men like Wythe, 
of Virginia, Roger Sherman and Oliver Wolcott of Con- 
necticut, Ward of Rhode Island, and Chase of ]Maryland. 
These men stood by him nobly. 

The Quakers of Philadelphia had issued an address 
in which unqualified submission was strongly urged. 
Samuel Adams was never more energetic in his lan- 
guage than in the reply which he made. It was no 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 73 

time now, lie believed, to mince matters, as the follow- 
ing extract will show: 

*"But,' say the puling, pusillanimous cowards, 'we 
shall be subject to a long and bloody war if we declare 
independence.' On the contrary, I affirm it the only 
step that can bring the contest to a speedy and happy 
issue. By declaring independence we put ourselves on a 
footing for an equal negotiation. Now we are called a 
pack of villainous rebels, who, like the St. Vincent's In- 
dians, can expect nothing more than a pardon for our 
lives, and the sovereign favor, respecting freedom and 
property, to be at the king's will. Grant, Almighty 
God, that I may be numbered with the dead before that 
sable day dawns on North America." 

But the most triumphant moment of his life was about 
to come. One by one the men whose names are written 
high up on America's roll of honor were won to his 
views. The logic of events was on his side. 

After a long debate, the Declaration of Independence 
was signed on the fourth of July, 1776. The fierce 
struggle on the floor of Congress was ended. 

John Hancock wrote down his name in a bold, dash- 
ing hand, saying: 

''There, I have written it that George the Third might 
read it without his spectacles. " 

Somebody said, "Now we must all hang together." 

"Yes," answered Dr. Franklin, with grim humor, "or 
we shall all hang separately." 

Fat Mr. Harrison, of Virginia, said to lean little El- 
bridge Gerry, of Massachusetts: 



74 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

**When it comes to hanging, I shall have the advan- 
tage of you." 

*'How do you make that out," said Mr. Gerry. 

"Because my neck will probably be broken at the first 
drop, whereas you may have to dangle for half an hour." 

Samuel Adams was not one of the Committee to draft 
the Declaration of Independence, because he was a 
member of another Committee, considered as important. 
This was the Committee, consisting of one from each 
colony, to prepare a plan of Confederation. 

A characteristic anecdote is told of Mr. Adams, when, 
on the eighth of May, 1776, the sound of heavy artillery 
was heard down the Delaware. This booming of can- 
non was known to proceed from gunboats that had been 
sent to protect the river from British cruisers. 

As the sound of the first gun burst upon the ear of 
Congress, Samuel Adams sprang upon his feet, and cried 
out with exultation, to the infinite astonishment of a 
few timid members: 

''Thank God ! the game's begun, none can stop it 
now !" 

Throughout the Revolutionary war Samuel Adams 
remained in Congress, except one year, and rendered 
signal service during its continuance. He never lost 
heart, even amid the gloom at the close of the year 1776. 
He was not in favor of the resolution of Congfress on the 
twelfth of December of that year to adjourn from Phila- 
delphia to Baltimore. 

He wrote in one of his letters at this time: "I do not 
regret the part I have taken in a cause so just and inter- 



cfq" 
5. 
5* 

o 



CI. 
CD 

a 

3 
o 




76 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

esting to mankind. The people of Pennsylvania and 
the Jerseys seem determined to give it up, but I trust 
that my dear New England will maintain it at the ex- 
pense of everything dear to them in this life." 

He was accused of being an enemy of Washington, and 
Hancock, who had become deeply hostile to his former 
friend, circulated, if he did not originate the slander. 
Mr. Adams indignantly wTote: 

''The Arts they make us of are contemptible. Last 
year, as you observe, I was an Knemy to George Wash- 
ington. This was said to render me odious to the People. 
The Man who fabricated that charge did not l)elieve it 
himself." 

He was never concerned in the Conway cabal. 

The cautious method of Washington was criticised by 
Samuel Adams and others. The great General who was 
to win the battles of the Revolution by "P^abian policy," 
had not become fully known to his contemporaries. 
Samuel Adams afterwards did him full justice. 

In 1779, Mr. Adams was appointed one of the Com- 
mittee to prepare a State Constitution for Massachusetts. 
Samuel Adams and John Adams were appointed a Sub- 
Committee to draft the Constitution, which, with some 
amendments, was adopted by the Constitutional Con- 
vention. 

In 1787 he was elected a member of the Massachusetts 
Convention for the ratification of the Federal Constitu- 
tion. With this Constitution Samuel Adams was not 
altogether satisfied. He did not favor, about the period 
of 1780, the establishment of Departments of State, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 77 

the Navy, etc., presided over by Secretaries. He pre- 
ferred the form of Committees as the executive machin- 
ery of Congress. This was a mistake. 

He was slow to yield to the conferring of great pow- 
ers on a body so far removed from the people as was 
contained in the Federal Constitution, without some 
important amendments. The ideas of the Town meet- 
ing still continued dominant with him. 

He was a thorough believer in Mr. Jefferson's maxim, 
"Where annual election ends tyranny begins." Like 
Mr. Jefferson, he was also profoundly convinced of the 
importance of preserving the independence of the sev- 
eral States. 

He loved to be in closest touch with the common 
people, and this confidence in their strong good sense, 
was adroitly used to hasten his vote on the ratification 
of the Constitution. 

The leading mechanics of Boston held a meeting at 
"The Green Dragon Inn" to pass resolutions in favor of 
the Constitution, They deputed Paul Revere to take 
them to Mr. Adams. 

"How many mechanics," said Samuel Adams, "were 
at the Green Dragon ?" 

"More than it could hold," was the answer. 

"And where were the rest, Mr. Revere?" 

"In the streets, sir." 

"And how many were in the streets ?" 

"More, sir, than there are stars in the sky." 

Mr. Adams delayed no longer, but voted in the affir- 
mative. 



78 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



John Fiske says that had it not been for the delay of 
Samuel Adams in voting, he would have been chosen 
Vice President under Washington, instead of John 
Adams, and thus would have been the successor of 
Washington as second President of the United States. 




Birthplace of Paul Revere, Boston. 

The amendments, Mr. Adams proposed, were rejected 
by the Convention, though afterwards accepted by the 
Nation as a part of its fundamental law. 

Mr. Bancroft dispels the misunderstanding regarding 
the relation of Samuel Adams to the adoption of the 
Constitution, in a private letter to Professor Hosmer. 
He says: 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 79 

"He never was opposed to the Constitution; he only 
waited to make up his mind." 

It now seems quite clear, from all we can learn, that 
his friends were right when they said: 

"Samuel Adams saved the Constitution in Massachu- 
setts," for when he voted 'aye," it was ratified, though 
by the barest majority. 

Senator Hoar, ''who, so well, represents a vigorous 
and victorious Nationalism," has not erred in his esti- 
mate of the character of Samuel Adams, when he calls 
him, "the greatest of our Statesmen, in the soundness 
and sureness of his opinions, and in the strength of 
original argument by which he persuaded the people to 
its good." 

In 1788 he was defeated for Congress by Fisher Ames, 
although a strong plea had been made for him by his 
friends, who placed him justly side by side with Wash- 
ington, and called him the "American Cato." 

The bitterness of the Federal party now became very 
great, and continued to the day of his death. The Fed- 
eralists could not forgive his alliance with Jefferson and 
his friendliness towards the French Revolution. A note 
is still preserved in which he is threatened with assas- 
sination. 

In 1789 Mr. Adams was elected Lieutenant Governor 
of Massachusetts, with Hancock as Governor, and was 
regularly chosen to that office until 1794, when he was 
elected Governor of the State on the death of Hancock. 

A full reconciliation had been effected between these 
two men, chiefly through the christian magnanimity of 



8o SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Mr. Adams, and once more their hearts beat together in 
brotherly nnison. 

Samnel Adams, with the Pnritan spirit in him, was 
opposed to the theatre, and tried to make of Boston ''a 
Christian Sparta," while Cjoverncjr of the vState, by pre- 
venting theatrical exhibitions. 

b'or fonr snccessive years he was elected ( xovernor by 
large majorities. Bnt in 1797, being seventy-five years 
of age, he declined a re-election, and retired to private 
life. 

His last days were spent in obscnrit\', and in great 
pecnniary distress. Bnt it was a touching scene, wlien 



tjC^mk 



Sif?nature of Samuel Adams, written in 1«01. 

in the year 1800, General vStrong, riding at the head of a 
great military procession, passed throngh Winter Steeet, 
and stopping before the venerable patriot's house, salu- 
ted the aged hero, with bared head, and thus publicly 
expressed his reverence. The soldiers presented arms, 
and the people stood uncovered and silent. 

To the last of his life he w^as interested in the com- 
mon schools, the Palladium of American liberties. In 
the school room his form became familiar, and troops of 
children knew him as their friend. 

Though stern in character, he was social, sympathetic 
and kind in disposition, blending in harmony, traits that 
were seemingly opposite in their nature. 

His last letter was one of rebuke to Thomas Paine. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 




He said: "Do you think that your pen, or the pen of any 
other man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens?" 

But the Puritan who could request that an Episcopal 
clergyman should open the first Congress with prayer, 
and that ministers of various denom- 
inations should open each day the 
Massachusetts Legislature with de- 
votional exercises, was no bigot. 

On Sunday morning, the second 
of October, 1803, ^^^ passed away, 
at the age of eighty-two. Through 
political animosity there was great 
difficulty in securing a suitable 
escort for his funeral. This was 
at last overcome. The shops were 
closed; flags in the harbor were at half-mast; bells were 
tolled ; minute guns were fired from Fort Independence, 
as with military parade and the reverberation of muffled 
drums, the funeral procession went slowly on. 

In a plain coffin, the body of the great Puritan was 
carried past the Old South, where he had worshipped 
during the last ten years of his life, around the Old State 
House, up Court Street into Tremont Street, and thence 
to the Granary Burying Ground. There, in the Check- 
ley tomb was deposited the mortal remains of "The 
Father of the American Revolution," of whom Clymer, 
of Pennsylvania, declared a century ago. 

"All good Americans should erect a statue of him in 
their hearts." 



CtC^Tz^ 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 

(1722-1803) . 

By G. Mercer Adam.* 

OF the figures of interest in the historic group of Revoki- 
tionary patriots one of the chief is Samuel Adams, of 
Boston, Mass., cousin of President John Adams, and with the 
latter one of the active agents in bringing about American 
independence. His share in the movements of the time that 
led to the separation of the American Colonies from the 
Motherland was an early as well as an active one. Early 
in his career the rebel showed itself in his attitude towards 
the Crown, and as an agitator none of the men of his era was 
more disturbing or more persistently opposed the authorities 
in Boston who represented the king and did his behest and 
those of the English Parliament in the New World. In 
town-meeting he was constantly to be found, where he in- 
stilled in the people what in the royal mouth were pestilent, 
seditious principles, in his opposition to English legislation 
for the Colonies, such as Grenville's hated Stamp Act and 
the obnoxious "Writs of Assistance," empowering the offi- 
cers of the law to enter and search houses suspected of con- 
cealing smuggled or contraband goods. Here Adams de- 
nounced "taxation without representation," and the imposts 



•Historian, Biographer, and Eusayist, Author of a "Precis of English History," 
a "Continuation of Grecian History," etc., and for many years Editor of Self- 
Culture Magazine.— The Publishers. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 83 

of the English government designed with the double motive 
of exacting tribute from the Colonies and tyrannously 
thwarting them in their efforts after independence, with 
continued liberty and freedom. Here, too, and in the Massa- 
chusetts Assembly, when he became a member of that body, 
did he fulminate against Tory men in the district, clamor 
for the removal of the English soldiery, and, when petitions 
to the Crown were unavailing, urged the cooperation of the 
other Colonies to withstand royal aggression and unite in 
the now clamorous cause of Independence. In the earlier 
town-meetings, Adams's services were important in drafting 
instructions against Parliamentary Taxation and on the 
rights and privileges of the Provinces, as well as, later on, 
in inditing the remonstrances of the Assembly of Massa- 
chusetts addressed to the English ministry and to the local 
governor, with petitions to the king, besides letters and re- 
ports to the other provincial Assemblies, urging the political 
necessity of Independence, and expressing the true senti- 
ments and attitude of the Colonies in regard to English 
rule. In these multiform duties, as well as in his varied 
and long-continued services in organizing associations on 
behalf of the popular cause, and in addressing bodies of 
patriots, such as "The Sons of Liberty" and Continental 
Non-importation Leagues, formed for the purpose of uniting 
the Colonies in their opposition to the importation or use of 
English manufactures, imported tea, aifd other dutiable arti- 
cles of commerce, Adams's labors were ceaseless and untir- 
ing, and were at length fraught with gratifying success. 

To-day, in the present era of good feeling and the heartily 
recognized kinship between the two countries and peoples, 



84 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

one can hardly realize the irritation and estrangement of that 
early period in Colonial history, and one is somewhat in- 
clined to consider Samuel Adams not only as an unmitigated 
rebel, but as a man of contumacious mood and ill-regulated 
feelings, whom no one could a})pease or get pleasantly on 
with, and that no character of rule, however benign, would 
satisfy. It is true, there is that element in his composition 
which is more the mark of the agitator and breeder of sedi- 
tion than of the calm, dispassionate, or even the calculating 
statesman ; but the man was on fire for a cause, and his 
soul burned within him as he brooded over the wrongs of 
the Colonies and desired for them freedom from the ex- 
asperating yoke of the Motherland. From the first he seems 
to have meditated war, and to have wrought himself up into 
belief in it, as the only solvent for his country's troubles ; 
while in pressing on to this extreme issue he saw that Eng- 
land's humiliation would surely come, and that independence 
for the American Colonies w^ould thus be secured. How 
far this w^as the result of practical foresight, or an issue tow- 
ard which he had early bent his mind and sought gratifica- 
tion in persistently advocating, are to-day questions some- 
what difficult to answer. Doubtless, both had weight, spur- 
red on by the dominance of the idea of Separation constantly 
in his mind, and by his ever active, bitter and vindicative 
hatred of England and of England's dominion in the New 
World. Ingrained in the man was his dislike of the Tories, 
who returned his hostility in kind, as well as his aspersions 
on their oppressive modes of government. Implacable and 
unappeasable as he was, the Tories soon saw that they could 
do nothing with him, not even by way of bribes or by 



SAMUEL ADAAIS. 85 

threats ; while he treated them in the most contemptuous 
manner and deemed their rule as fit only for slaves. Not a 
little of his early hatred of them arose from his own misad- 
ventures as a young man in business and the wreck of his 
father's estate, especially his banking interests, which suf- 
fered from governmental restrictions and heavy taxation, 
which brought him into financial embarrassment and finally 
into the hands of the sheriff. Nor did he fare better as a 
tax collector, for his easy going ways and dislike of ''put- 
ting on the screws" in the way of taxation of the people 
brought him into trouble and led to Governor Hutchinson's 
accusation of defalcation ; while in reality the shortage in 
his accounts was due to his leniency as a collector, and, as 
we have said, to his unwillingness to resort to harsh methods 
of wringing the tax-levy moneys from the townspeople. 
His care for the latter and interest in them was always 
great, and rather than impoverish the taxes laid upon them 
by Tory administrations, he was willing to come short of 
his duty and bear the odium of seeming wrongdoing as the 
result of his sympathy and leniency. His indifference to his 
own personal interests and disregard of fortune was equally 
a characteristic of the man ; while as a patriot he showed his 
incorruptibility by refusing money and other offers of re- 
ward from representatives of the Crown rather than prove 
vmtrue to the popular cause which he so incessantly lab- 
ored for and held so dear. Nor did he flinch when de- 
nounced as a rebel, and when threatened with imprisonment 
and exportation to London, there to be punished for his 
disloyalty and many fulminations against the king and his 
government, had he been captured on perilous and disturb- 



86 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

ing occasions when his seditious speech was most violent 
and his other incitements to rebelHon were ahke vociferous 
and fearless. That he was not hanged, beheaded, or other- 
wise made away with for his disaffection to England and for 
his contumacy as an inciter of rebellion, was certainly not 
his fault, for no one of the Revolutionary Fathers was more 
outspoken in his treason to the Crown, or more persistent in 
the many years before Independence came in the cause of 
liberty and freedom in the New World. With his own peo- 
ple — those at least whom he could trust — Samuel Adams 
was alike respected and beloved, and over them he exerted 
an influence beyond that of many of the leaders of the time, 
who were less acrimonious in speech, more circumspect in 
their attitude towards the representatives of royalty in New 
England. He stood staunchly for the rights and privileges 
of the people, and in the journals of the era none was more 
zealous or more influential in advocating and upholding the 
popular cause. In this and in numberless other ways he 
was looked upon as a man of sound conviction and earnest 
mood, as well as a true and fearless patriot, who well earned 
the regard of all, with the distinctive appellation of "the 
tribune of the people." His patriotic enthusiasm was most 
exuberant, and his earnestness influenced many towards him 
and his cause who might otherwise have remained indif- 
ferent, or, on the other hand, have gone over to the enemy, 
or acquiesced in the status quo. 

But it is time to see a little more closely into the doings 
of this man, and to follow his career from birth up, that 
we may better realize the mission he undertook and trace 
his influence upon the age that preceded revolution and 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 87 

finally ushered in the era of Independence. Samuel Adams 
was born at Boston, Mass., on the i6th of September, 1722. 
His father was by occupation a maltster, yet, socially, a 
rnan of some consequence in the community, being possessed 
of both influence and wealth. He, it seems, had a passion 
for politics, and was instrumental in organfzing the Caulk- 
er's Club in Boston, a quasi-political assembly which em- 
braced many men of note in the town, and from whose meet- 
ing together we derive the familiar word "caucus." From 
him, young Samuel inherited his taste for politicar gather- 
ings and his aptitude in the management of them; while 
from his mother, Mary Fifield, he derived much of his earn- 
est mood, persuasive manner, and not a little of his sturdy 
moral character. His progenitors were English ; one, Henry 
Adams, having come from Devonshire in the seventeenth 
century, whose two sons were respectively the grandfathers 
of Samuel Adams, and of the latter's cousin, John Adams, 
the second U. S. President. 

Samuel Adams was educated primarily at the Boston 
Latin School, whence, in 1736, he passed to Harvard Col- 
lege, from which he received, in 1740, his M. A. degree, and 
on the occasion delivered before the graduating class and 
the authorities of the institution an essay, which thus early 
showed the political drift of his thoughts, on the theme: 
''Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme Magistrate, if 
the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved." The 
design of his parents, on the youth's leaving college was to 
have him study for the Congregational ministry ; but this, it 
seems, was not to the young man's own liking, and for a 
time he served as a clerk in a store, though he soon found 



88 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

that he had no aptness for business Hfe. While he lost 
what capital had been given him by his father and fell back 
on a maltster's occupation in the establishment of the elder 
Adams. Meanwhile, he gratified his taste for writing by 
contributing to the newspapers of the day, and at the 
same time taking a lively interest in politics. In 1748, his 
father died, and the latter's estate having suffered loss 
through a disastrous banking speculation, the son accepted 
the appointment of tax collector for the town of Boston and 
entered upon the duties of the office. He, nominally at least, 
continued the connection with his late father's malting busi- 
ness, and in the following year, when twenty-seven years of 
age, he married Elizabeth Checkley, the winsome daughter 
of the minister of the New South Church, and made for a 
time a happy home for himself. Eight years later, this 
lady, who made her husband an excellent wife, died, and, 
in 1765, Adams married Elizabeth Wells, who also proved 
a faithful and sympathizing wife, and did much to aid her 
now active husband in his laborious and patriotic work. 
In both of these marriages the wives had to contend with 
straitened means, and had also to share in the obloquy which 
fell upon Adams from incensed Tory sources, as a conse- 
quence of his political hostility to Tory rule, and to the 
increasing English aggression, in the methods employed to 
control and coerce the American Colonies. 

At this era, when George III had come (A. D. 1760) to 
the English throne and the political development of the 
Kingdom was actively manifesting itself, the great struggle 
with the American Colonies had its origin. When the 
King assumed the crown, the Seven Years' War had nearly 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 89 

run its course, and the great question as to which power, 
France or England, should become master of North Ameri- 
ca and of India had been all but settled by the capture of 
Quebec (1759), and by Clive's victories at Arcot and Plassy. 
The success of the British arms and of imperial policy at 
this period was in considerable measure due to one of 
England's greatest statesmen, WilHam Pitt, afterwards Earl 
of Chatham. In 1756, Pitt was made Secretary of State, 
and during the Seven Years' War his vigorous and large- 
minded policy, as war minister, did much to restore Eng- 
land's military fame abroad and add to the laurels of the 
nation. His steady advocacy of the rights of the people, 
his passionate and almost resistless eloquence, and his mar- 
vellous power to animate and inspire a desponding nation, 
earned for him the title of "the great Commoner." Unfor- 
tunately, this able and safe minister was driven from office 
by the machinations of the "King's Party" in the Cabinet, 
led by the Scotch Tory, Lord Bute, supported by the King, 
who was his political pupil. Bute, for a time, became Eng- 
lish prime minister, but with the peace Treaty of Paris, in 
1763, which inadequately compensated England for her vast 
expenditures during the Seven Years' War, he became so 
unpopular that he resigned and was succeeded by George 
Grenville and his ministry, which, as we shall see, became 
seriously involved in difficulties with the North American 
Colonies on the question of taxation. 

Out of these difficulties was to arise, as all know, the 
great struggle between popular and autocratic principles of 
government in England as well as in the New World. 
The Seven Years' War, which had been waged chiefly for 



90 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

the protection of the Colonial dependencies, had left a heavy 
burden of debt upon England. To meet this debt, in part, 
Grenville, then English prime minister, proposed to levy 
a Stamp Tax upon the American Colonies, now, as we know, 
thirteen in number, with a population of two million whites 
and half a million blacks. But the Colonists objected to 
being taxed without their consent, and without representa- 
tion in the British Parliament, and declared that they were 
sufficiently oppressed by the burden of Customs' duties al- 
ready imposed upon them. The Stamp Act, it need hardly 
be said, was nevertheless passed, in spite of the protest of 
the Colonial Assemblies; but the obnoxious measure met 
with such opposition in America that, at Pitt's urgent soli- 
citation, it was withdrawn. Parliament, however, passed 
another Act declaring its authority over the Colonies in 
matters of legislation and taxation, and this naturally in- 
creased the soreness of feeling in America against the 
mother country. The irritation was far from being allayed 
when a subsequent English administration imposed various 
small but vexing Customs' duties on American imports, but 
chiefly upon tea. In retaliation, the Colonists determined 
not to use this article. The spirit of resistance was soon 
now to take a determined form; for, on the one hand, the 
King and his ministers stubbornly insisted on England's 
right to derive some benefit from her Colonies; while, on 
the other hand, the Colonists as stubbornly held to the prin- 
ciple of no taxation without representation, and upheld the 
rights of their own Assemblies. Meanwhile, the Grenville 
ministry had passed away, with its successors under the 
leaderships of Lord Rockingham and the Duke of Grafton, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 91 

and was followed by die administration of Lord North. 
Pitt, who had now become Earl of Chatham, was for a 
time a member of the Grafton ministry, but resigned on the 
plea of ill-health. Partly recovering his strength, he be- 
came a vehement opponent of Lord North's government. 
Throughout the trouble with the American Colonists he was 
a staunch supporter of their cause, and in Parliament elo- 
quently denounced arbitrary measures against them. 

While these events were transpiring in England, Samuel 
Adams had been at Boston a most interested observor of 
them, as well as a more or less outspoken denouncer of 
English aggression, and especially of the policy of the 
Home Gov^nment in its efforts to control American trade 
and levy taxes upon the Colonists. The control of Ameri- 
can trade was sought to be gained by the revival of old 
English Navigation Acts, and by levying prohibitory duties 
upon articles imported for use in the Colonies. American 
protest against these levies was shown, at first, by disre- 
gard of them, and afterwards by evading their collection 
illegally through smuggling, and, later on, by the non-use of 
the articles of commerce on which the duties were placed. 
Adams not only counselled, but delighted in counselling, the 
New England people to take these means of defying or 
evading the law. To such an extent did he go in his em- 
bittered talk against England, as well as in provoking a 
collision between the traders and the authorities in Boston, 
that the English governors were repeatedly horrified at 
Adams's seditious attitude, while again and again were they 
ordered to arrest the offender and send him for trial and 
punishment to the motherland. In spite of, or rather in 



92 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



defiance of, these personal threats of the Crown, through 
its representatives in the Colony of Massachusetts, Adams 
continued on his rebel course, and at this time took violent 
ground against the issue of the ''Writs of Assistance," so 
patriotically denounced by James Otis, and against Gren- 
ville's Stamp Act, his opposition to the latter being forcibly 
expressed in the draft he penned of the Assembly's Resolu- 
tions, as well as in the address he caused to be sent to the 
Assemblies of the sister Colonies pleading for united action 
in resisting England's encroachments on the inalienable 
rights of the American people. 

The effect of the addresses sent to the sister Colonies in 
adding to the volume of outcry against the Stamp Act- was 
immediate; while it was gratifying to Samuel Adams to 
find that the seeds of sedition he had been sowing by means 
of his voluminous correspondence and active agitation was 
producing fruit over the country in stiffening the resistance 
of the people to what was deemed an unjust and grievious 
tax. Under the influence of the orator, Patrick Henry, the 
Virginia Assembly, in 1765, passed a series of bold resolu- 
tions protesting against the hated measure and asserting the 
right, as Virginia's own, to lay taxes upon the Colony. In 
Massachusetts, opposition to the levying of the tax led to 
open violence and to a series of riots, house-sackings, and 
other disturbances which greatly alarmed the authorities and 
frightened the acting governor ; while the passing of the Act 
led to the summoning of a Congress at New York, in Octo- 
ber, 1765, which drew up petitions to the English govern- 
ment, and a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances of the 
Colonies in America." This Congress brought together 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 93 

representatives of nine of the Colonies, among whom were 
a number of prominent men, such as James Otis, John 
Dickinson of Pennsylvania. Livingston of New York, Rut- 
ledge of South Carolina, and other patriots. In the Massa- 
chusetts Assembly, to which body Samuel Adams had now 
been elected, resolutions were also drawn up protesting 
against the unlawful impost of the English Parliament and 
claiming for the colony the rights of freemen and British 
subjects. When the Act became operative, it was found, 
however, that the Colonists, as in other cases, evaded the 
law and tabooed the stamps ; while litigants who were re- 
quired to use them on legal documents adjusted their dif- 
ferences by arbitration and so avoided the use of the stamp. 
So serious was the crisis that the Courts were for the time 
closed and all business at the Custom houses was suspended. 
The newspapers printed a death's head or skull and bones 
where the stamp should be affixed. In other ways were the 
Colonies stirred up by this irritating method of laying 
taxes on them, till at last the volume of protest had its 
effect and the Stamp Act was repealed. Its repeal re- 
moved the difficulty, however, without removing the cause, 
since the English ministry found other methods of raising 
a revenue in the Colonies, so far, at least, as to meet some 
of the cost of the military expenditure of England in the 
country. This was eflfected by means of Revenue Acts, a 
scheme resorted to by Minister Townshend, who had de- 
clared in Parliament that "if the taxation of America is 
given up, England is undone." This new scheme of taxa- 
tion was met in New England pretty much as the Stamp 
Act impost had been met, not only by united and more per- 



94 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

emptory protest, but by common agreement not to import 
or use the taxed articles. The result was, that England 
found that the cost of collecting the new revenue duties 
equalled the gross sum obtained from them, and no financial 
advantage whatever accrued. Thus, the new attempt to 
coerce the Colonies was to England a disappointment as 
well as a failure, while it provoked renewed strife in New 
England and still further inflamed the spirit of hostility 
and sedition, now generally manifesting itself. 

Another trouble now arose, in the opposition, chiefly in 
Boston, to the presence of English troops in barracks, and 
especially to their being billeted on the citizens, and made 
use of to overawe those attending the Massachusetts' Assem- 
bly and to break up so-called seditious rneetings. This 
new tyranny, as Samuel Adams deemed it, he hotly de- 
nounced, not only because he hated the red coats as mer- 
cenaries of the English Crown, but because he refused to 
allow the public money of the Colony to be spent on their 
maintenance in the country. When they were used to in- 
terrupt or close his meetings, or when they fell foul of 
bodies of citizens and came to blows with them, as at "the 
Boston Massacre," Adams became wrathful in the extreme 
and loudly demanded their instant removal. Governor 
Hutchinson at first refused to accede to the request for their 
removal, alleging — probably honestly — want of authority to 
do so; but in answer to further clamor he consented to 
withdraw one regiment, when Adams took sturdy ground 
and insisted on the removal of "both regiments or none!" 
Unwillingly the Governor at length complied, and a patriot 
night-watch, composed of armed citizens, was substituted 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 95 

for the troops. Toward the soldiers who had taken part in 
the so-called "Boston Massacre," Boston acted with clem- 
ency and discretion, and at their trial, it will be remembered, 
they had for counsel our hero's cousin, John Adams, of 
Braintree, Mass. 

In 1773, the Colonists were finally estranged from the 
mother country by the arrival in Boston harbor of three 
ship-loads of taxed tea, which the Colonists, incited by 
Samuel Adams, refused to receive; and as the English 
Governor (Hutchinson) would not consent to the tea be- 
ing returned to England, the whole cargo, at a signal given 
by Adams, was thrown overboard into Boston bay by pat- 
riots in the disguise of Mohawk Indians. For this lawless 
act the English government closed the port of Boston and 
took away the old charter of Massachusetts. In addition 
to abolishing the liberties of the people of the Colony, Eng- 
land sent out more troops, and on their arrival, together 
with a change in the governorship, from that of Hutchinson 
to the regime of Governor Gage, the Colonists banded them- 
selves together for armed resistance. The wish of Adams' 
heart was now about to be gratified, and at this period an- 
other effort was made, by offers of bribes and high position, 
to conciliate him ; but Gage failed in this as his predecessor 
had done. To this new offer of the olive leaf held out by 
the Governor, Adams replied with dignity as well as with 
earnestness : "Sir, I trust I have long since made my peace 
with the King of Kings. No personal consideration shall 
induce me-^to abandon the righteous cause of my country. 
Tell Governor Gage it is the advice of Samuel Adams to 



96 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

him, no longer to insult the feelings of an exasperated 
people." 

After this, Adams, in the eyes of the Governor and the 
Tories of the Colony, became practically a proscribed man ; 
and under the Tory ban with him, to some extent, was his 
fellow-patriot, John Hancock, whom Adams, some years be- 
fore, had induced to espouse and support with his large 
means the popular cause. At this era, when Boston had 
fallen far from royal favor, the town of Salem became for 
a time the capital of Massachusetts Colony and the meeting 
place of the legislature. Here, it was thought, under Gage's 
regime, that a Tory administration would prove more ac- 
ceptable to the people ; but in this the authorities of the time 
were wrong, for not only did the patriots present themselves 
in force and carry forward their plans, but the sister Col- 
onies more heartily still joined Massachusetts in resisting 
subjection and responding to the resolutions passed by the 
Assembly summoning a Continental Congress. 

This first Continental Congress, convened at Philadelphia 
on September 5, 1774, and included among its delegates 
Samuel and John Adams from Massachusetts, John Jay 
from New York, Patrick Henry and George Washington 
from Virginia, together with other influential men who were 
to figure in the coming hostilities in the field, or in the coun- 
cils of the incipient nation when Revolution had brought 
about Union and Independence. The people now stood 
together for resistance, and all the Colonies but Georgia sent 
representatives to the Congress. In the latter, resolutions 
were first passed approving of the attitude of Massachu- 
setts in resisting the aggression of the mother country in 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 97 

imposing tyrannous laws on the Colony and in opposing 
the encroachments and other annoying acts of Gage and his 
predecessors in the royal government of the time. Then 
came a series of addresses and remonstrances, and a Declar- 
ation of Rights, setting forth the grievances which the 
several Colonies had to complain of and the privileges they 
claimed as freemen, opposed to coercive statutes and to an- 
noying restrictions on their commerce. Before it ad- 
journed, Congress formed an Association pledged to the 
non-importation of taxed articles from England, and recom- 
mending the several Colonies to pass local legislation effec- 
tively to debar the incoming of dutiable articles or their 
use by the people. The reply of the English Government 
to this attitude of the Colonies, in spite of the protests of 
Pitt and other conciliationists in England, was to declare 
Massachusetts in a state of rebellion and to ban all the 
Colonies from trade with Britain and the West Indies and 
from engaging in the Newfoundland fisheries. 

In the doings of Congress, Adams took an interested part, 
though chiefly at work on committees and undertaking an 
extended correspondence with fellow-patriots over the 
country. His attitude at this time .may be seen by his ad- 
dress in Congress, where he passionately exclaimed: *T 
should advise persisting in our struggle for liberty, though 
it were revealed from heaven that nine hundred and ninety- 
nine were to perish, and only one in a thousand survived 
to retain his liberty. One such freeman must possess more 
virtue, and enjoy more happiness, than a thousand slaves; 
and let him propagate his like, and transmit to them what 
he hath so nobly preserved." Affairs were now fast drift- 



98 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

ing beyond the point where talk was to influence either for 
coercion or for concihation, and the whole machinery of 
the royal government in New England was stopped. In 
Boston, heated meetings were convened and addressed by 
Adams and by Dr. Joseph Warren. At one of the gather- 
ings, held in the Old South Church, soldiers were present 
to fire on Adams, on Hancock, and on other inciters of re- 
bellion, if provocation occurred and a melee ensued. Muni- 
tions of war were meanwhile being secreted by the patriots 
at various parts of New England, and soldiers were sent by 
Governor Gage to Lexington and Concord to endeavor to 
capture and destroy them. This happened in the spring of 
1775, and at Lexington the first shots in the war were fired 
between the Colonists and a body of English troops. 
Trouble also came in another quarter, for Congress, while 
in session at Philadelphia, had invited the Canadians to 
join the American people in throwing ofif allegiance to 
Britain; but Canada remained loyal and refused to rally to 
the standard of revolt. This neutral attitude gave umbrage 
to the American Colonists and they then sought to invade 
Canada and wrest it from the British Crown. In 1775, two 
expeditions were fitted out for the purpose, one of which 
seized the forts on Lake Champlain, the gateway of Canada, 
and, thinking that the Canadians would ofifer no resistance, 
they proceeded to invest Montreal. Another expedition ad- 
vanced upon Quebec. Montreal, being indififerently gar- 
risoned, surrendered to an American force, but the attack 
on Quebec failed after some weeks' seige. The American 
General, Montgomery, who had formerly fought under 
Wolfe, was killed in storming the citadel on the 31st of 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 99 

December, and the American campaign came to a speedy 
end. 

Before this happened, an adjourned meeting of the Con- 
tinental Congress took place (May, 1775), at Philadelphia, 
and a Provincial Congress met in Massachusetts. In the 
latter, provision was made to enrol the ^'minute men,^' as 
they were called, who were to respond to the summons of the 
State in any emergency call. In the former, now under the 
presidency of John Hancock, an important action was taken 
by John Adams, seconded by his counsin, Samuel Adams, 
namely, to appoint George Washington of Virginia, as 
commander-in-chief of the American army (June, 1775). 
Later, Charles Lee was mistakenly, as subsequently was 
proved, named second in command. In the same month, 
the English Governor of Massachusetts, General Gage, is- 
sued a proclamation avowing all citizens in arms rebels and 
traitors, though offering pardon to all who would lay down 
their arms and express fealty to the Crown, save John Han- 
cock and Samuel Adams, whose offences were deemed too 
flagitious to admit of aught but condign puishment. Mean- 
while, the Governor and the English troops were practically 
shut up in Boston, for the whole country was now astir 
and the Massachusetts' capital was beseiged by the patriot 
forces. On June 17, the British made a sortie from Bos- 
ton and the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. Here the 
patriots were repulsed, while in the engagement Dr. Warren 
fell, though the loss was more serious on the whole to the 
English. The gauntlet of defiance was now thrown down 
by the Colonists, for New York at once called out her mili- 
tia, and steps were taken to organize a National Government 
L.ofC. 



loo SAMUEL ADAMS. 

and to raise an American Continental army. Later in the 
year, the fitting out of the nucleus of a naval defence force 
and the commissioning of privateers were authorized. The 
Continental Congress also took determined and urgent ac- 
tion, in organizing a Committee of Foreign Correspondence, 
the beginnings of American relations with foreign powers, 
to whom, ere long, ambassadors were sent to represent the 
new-born Republic. Congress at the same time threw open 
the interdicted ports of the New World to foreign com- 
merce, ordered an issue of Continental paper money and 
called for national loans to meet the country's expenditures, 
organized a national postal service, and established courts 
for the adjudication of maritime questions. In the follow- 
ing year (1776), after all efforts towards reconciliation with 
England had failed and news came that the mother country 
now treated the Colonies as in open and armed rebellion. 
Congress took the momentous step of suppressing in Amer- 
ica the entire authority of the English Crown and declared 
Independence. Now were Samuel Adams' dearest wishes 
and desires fulfilled, in that allegiance to Britain was by 
this Third Continental Congress declared at an end, and 
the United Colonies had assumed the powers of sovereign 
states, under the proud title of "The United States of 
America." 

While these great acts were transpiring, Adams contin- 
ued zealously to play his prominent role as ''father of the 
American Revolution," and in that capacity he delivered 
at Philadelphia, in August, 1776, a notable oration on the 
new-born American Independence, which will be found 
appended to the present sketch of the patriot. At this time, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. loi 

he was not only a member of the Congress that declared In- 
dependence, though he did not happen to be on the Com- 
mittee that drafted the immortal document which Jefferson 
penned ; but he was also Secretary of State in Massachu- 
setts and a member of its Legislative Council, and took an 
active part in bringing the State militia into an efficient con- 
dition to prosecute the war with England, as well as to ad- 
vise and counsel the War Committee and give assistance to 
the Committee that dealt with naval matters. So enthus- 
iastic was he in these practical affairs, and so keen for vic- 
tory for the American army in the field, that he wrote many 
addresses to the people of Pennsylvania counselling them 
against the Quaker doctrine, then prevalent, of submission 
to England, and thus further brought upon himself the 
bitter hatred of the Tories and other Loyalists throughout 
all the Colonies by his unflinching attitude as a patriot and 
his extreme disaffection toward the mother country, w^hich 
he sought not only to defeat in the war, but to humiliate, as 
events later on proved, by an unconditional surrender. 

We need hardly rehearse here the later events of the 
struggle, as they are so well known to all. It will suffice 
briefly to say that New York was occupied by General 
Howe, in 1776, and in the following year Lord Cornwallis 
defeated Washington at Brandywine, and took Philadel- 
phia. A month later, however, the tide of fortune turned 
in favor of the Colonists ; for France lent them her aid, and 
the English general, Burgoyne, was forced to surrender, 
with 6,000 men, at Saratoga. This disaster led the English 
to see that the war with their kinsmen in America was a 
mistake, and overtures of peace were talked of in Parlia- 



I02 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

ment. But the entry of France into the quarrel brought 
about a renewal of hostilities, urged on by the Earl of 
Chatham, who though he had opposed the taxation of the 
Colonies, as we have related, would not hear of the dismem- 
berment of the Empire. While making a powerful speech 
in the House of Lords, against a proposal to make peace 
with America, the venerable statesman fell in a fit upon the 
floor, and died a month afterwards. The struggle hence- 
forth with the Colonies went on with slackened energy, 
for war had broken out with France, Spain, and Holland, 
owing to England's persistence, in that she deemed her right 
to search the vessels of neutral nations; and England, hav- 
ing these combined powers against her, had to limit her 
land operations to the Southern States. There, in 1781, as 
all know, the English arms met with a crowning disaster. 
Lord Cornwallis, for a time successful in the Carolinas, 
had withdrawn his forces to Yorktown, Va., to await sup- 
plies and reinforcements from New York. While there, a 
French fleet entered the Chesapeake and shut him in from 
the sea. Washington, and the French general, Lafayette, 
then surrounded Cornwallis on land, when he was forced 
to capitulate. This event, we need hardly add, brought the 
war to an inglorious close for England, though the misfor- 
tune was relieved for her by victories at sea over the fleets 
of France and Spain. Two years afterwards, by the Peace 
of Versailles (1783), Britain recognized the Independence 
of the United States of America. 

This signal achievement was, as it were, the coping- 
stone of American nationality which Samuel Adams lived to 
lay on the edifice which he helped so much to construct. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 103 

Henceforth he could take his ease, in the decHning years 
of his career, and muse with satisfaction on the labors of his 
hands and brain. He lived for twenty years after England's 
recognition of Independence, and for a period he was suc- 
cessively Lieutenant-Governor and Governor of his native 
State (Mass.), retiring to private life in 1797, and dying 
at Boston on the 3rd of October, 1803, bearing to the grave 
the veneration and respect due to a notable and illustrious 
American and devotee of Libertv. 



SAMUEL ADAMS'S ORATION ON AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 

Delivered at Philadelphia in August, 1776. 



Countrymen and Brethren : — I would gladly have de- 
clined an honor to which I find myself unequal. I have 
not the calmness and impartiality which the infinite impor- 
tance of this occasion demands. I will not deny the charge 
of my enemies, that resentment for the accumulated in- 
juries of our country, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive 
me of that accuracy of judgment and expression which men 
of cooler passions may possess. Let me beseech you, then, 
to hear me with caution, to examine your prejudice, and to 
correct the mistakes into which I may be hurried by my zeal. 

Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind. 
Your unperverted understandings can best determine on sub- 
jects of a practical nature. The positions and plans which 
are said to be above the comprehension of the multitude 



I04 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

may be always suspected to be visionary and fruitless. He 
who made all men, hath made the truths necessary to human 
happiness obvious to all. 

Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery° in reli- 
gion; for you is reserved the levelling the popery of poli- 
tics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the ca- 
pacity of every man to judge for himself in religion. Are 
we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spirit- 
ual truths, and unequal to material and temporal ones? 
Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things 
for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the pres- 
ent, or to know from our feelings the experience that will 
make us happy. "You can discern," say they, ''objects 
distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your 
grasp. Let us have the distribution of present goods, and 
cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity." 
This day, I trust, the reign of political protestantism ° will 
commence. We have explored the temple of royalty, and 
found that the idol we have bowed down to has eyes which 
see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the 
nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sovereign, 
to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in 
Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects as- 
suming that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direc- 
tion which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the 
setting sun may His kingdom come. 

Having been a slave to the influence of opinions early 
acauired and distinctions generally received, I am ever in- 
clined not to despise but to pity those who are yet in dark- 
ness. But to the eye of reason what can be more clear than 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 105 

that all men have an equal right to happiness? Nature 
made no other distinction than that of higher or lower de- 
grees of power of mind and body. But what mysterious 
distribution of character has the craft of statesmen, more 
fatal than priestcraft, introduced? 

According to their° doctrine, the offspring of a success- 
ful invader shall, from generation to generation, arrogate 
the right of lavishing on their pleasures a proportion of the 
fruits of the earth, more than sufficient to supply the wants 
of thousands of their fellow-creatures ; claim authority to 
manage them like beasts of burthen ° ; and without super- 
ior industry, capacity, or virtue, — nay, though disgraceful 
to humanity by their ignorance, intemperance, and brutality, 
— shall be deemed best calculated to frame laws and to 
consult for the welfare of society. 

Were the talents and virtues which Heaven has bestowed 
upon men given merely to make them more obedient 
drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambitions of the 
few? Or were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with 
a divine purpose and law that they should as nearly as pos- 
sible be equally exerted, and the blessings of poverty be 
equally enjoyed by all? Away, then, with those absurd sys- 
tems, which, to gratify the pride of a few, debase the great- 
est part of our species below the order of men. What an 
affront to the King of the universe, to maintain that the 
happiness of a monster sunk in debauchery and spreading 
desolation and murder among men, of a Caligula, a Nero, 
or a Charles, ° is more precious in His sight than that of 
millions of His suppliant creatures, who do justice, love 
mercy, and walk humbly with their God! No! in the 



io6 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

judgment of Heaven there is no other superiority among 
men than a superiority in wisdom and virtue. And can 
we have a safer model in forming ours? The Diety, then, 
has not given any order or family of men authority over 
others, and if any men have given it, they only ° could 
give it for themselves. Our forefathers, 'tis said, consented 
to be subject to the laws of Great Britain. I will not, at 
present, dispute it, nor mark out the limits and conditions 
of their submission ; but will it be denied that they contract- 
ed to pay obedience, and to be under the control of Great 
Britain, because it appeared to them most beneficial in their 
then present circumstances and situations? We, my coun- 
trymen, have the same right to consult and provide for our 
happiness which they had to promote theirs. If they had 
a view to posterity in their contracts, it must have been to 
advance the felicity of their descendants. If they erred in 
their expectations, and prospects, we can never be con- 
demned for a conduct which they would have recommended 
had but they foreseen our present condition. 

Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, 
lives, and religion of millions depend on the evasive inter- 
pretations of musty parchments ; who would send us to an- 
tiquated charters, of uncertain and contradictory meaning, 
to prove that the present generation are not bound to be 
victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether 
our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the mis- 
erable privilege of having the rewards of our honest indus- 
try, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled 
for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have 
no check? Did they contract for us that, with folded arms. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. I07 

we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and 
inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplica- 
tions at the foot of the throne ? Were we to hear our char- 
acter as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they 
promise for us that our meekness and patience should be 
insulted ; our coasts harassed ; our towns demolished and 
plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to naked- 
ness, hunger, and death, without our feeling the resent- 
ment of men, and exerting those powers of self-preserva- 
tion which God has given us? No man had once a greater 
veneration for Englishmen than I entertained. They were 
dear to me, as branches of the same parental trunk, and 
partakers of the same religion and laws ; I still view with re- 
spect the remains of the constitution ° as I would a life- 
less body which had once been animated by a great and 
heroic soul. But when I am roused by the din of arms; 
wdien I behold legions of foreign assassins, paid by English- 
men to imbrue their hands in our blood ; when I tread over 
the uncoffined bones of my countrymen, neighbors, and 
friends ; when I see the locks of a venerable father torn by 
savage hands, and a feeble mother, clasping her infants to 
her bosom, on her knees imploring their lives from her own 
slaves, whom Englishmen have allured to treachery and 
murder; when I behold my country, once the seat of in- 
dustry, peace, and plenty, changed by Englishmen to a 
theatre of blood and misery. Heaven forgive me if I cannot 
root out those passions which it has implanted in my bosom, 
and detest submission to a people who have either ceased to 
be human, or have not virtue enough to feel their own 
wretchedness ° and servitude. 



io8 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth, 
and a display of words, talk much of our obligations to 
Great Britain for protection ! Had she a single eye to our 
advantage ? A nation ° of shopkeepers are very seldom 
so disinterested. Let us not be so amused with words ; the 
extension of her commerce was her object. When she de- 
fended our coasts, she fought for her customers, and con- 
voyed our ships loaded with wealth which we had acquired 
for her by our industry. She has treated us as beasts of 
burthen, whom the lordly masters cherish that they may 
carry a greater load. Let us inquire also against whom she 
has protected us ; against her own enemies with whom we 
had no quarrel, or only on her account, and against whom 
we always readily exerted our wealth and strength when 
they were required. Were these Colonies backward in 
giving assistance to Great Britain when they were called 
upon in 1739 to aid the expedition against Carthagena ° ? 
They at that time sent three thousand men to join the 
British army, although the war commenced without their 
consent. But the last ° war, 'tis said, was purely Ameri- 
can. This is a vulgar error, which like many others has 
gained credit by being confidently repeated. The disputes 
between the courts of Great Britain <ind France related to 
the limits of Canada and Nova Scotia. The controverted 
territory was not claimed by any in the Colonies, but by the 
Crown of Great Britain. It was, therefore, their own quar- 
rel. The infringement of a right which England had, by 
the treaty of Utrecht, of trading in the Indian country of 
Ohio, w^as another cause of the war. The French seized 
large quantities of British manufacture, and took posession 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 109 

of a fort which a company of British merchants and factors 
had erected for the security of their commerce. The war 
was, therefore, waged in defence of lands claimed by the 
Crown and for the protection of British property. The 
French at that time had no quarrel with America; and, as 
appears by letters sent from their commander-in-chief to 
some of the Colonies, wished to remain in peace with us. 
The part, therefore, which we then took, the miseries to 
which we exposed ourselves, ought to be charged to our 
affection for Britain. These Colonies granted more than 
their proportion to the support of the war. They raised, 
clothed, and maintained nearly twenty-five thousand men, 
and so sensible were the people of England of our great 
exertions that a message was annually sent to the House 
of Commons purporting, ''That his Majesty being highly 
satisfied with the zeal and vigor with which his faithful 
subjects in North America had exerted themselves in de- 
fence of his Majesty's just rights and possessions, recom- 
mended it to the House to take the same into consideration 
and enable him to give them a proper compensation." 

But what purpose can arguments of this kind answer? 
Did the protection wq received annul our riglits as men, 
and lay us under an obligation of being miserable? 

Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would \ 
claim authority to make your child a slave because you had 
nourished him in his infancy ? 

'Tis a strange species of generosity which requires a re- 
turn infinitely more valuable than anything it could have 
bestowed; that demands as a reward for a defence of our 
property a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the 



no SAMUEL ADAMS. 

arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value 
to that very property. 

Political right and public happiness are different words 
for the same idea. They who wander into metaphysical 
labyrinths, or have recourse to original contracts, to deter- 
mine the rights of men, either impose on themselves or mean 
to delude others. Public utility is the only certain criterion. 
It is a test which brings disputes to a speedy decision, and 
makes it appeal to the feelings of mankind. The force of 
truth has obliged men to use arguments drawn from this 
principle, who were combating it, in practice and specula- 
tion. The advocates for a despotic government, and non- 
resistance to the magistrate, employ reasons in favor of 
their systems, drawn from a consideration of their tendency 
to promote public happiness. 

The Author of Nature directs all his operations to the 
production of the greatest good, and has made human virtue 
to consist in a disposition and conduct which tends to the 
common felicity of His creatures. An abridgement of the 
natural freedom of man, by the institution of political so- 
cieties, is vindicable only on this foot °. How absurd, 
then, is it to draw arguments from the nature of civil so- 
ciety for the annihilation of those very ends which society 
was intended to procure. Men associate for their mutual 
advantage. Hence the good and happiness of the members, 
that is, the majority of the members of any state, is the 
great standard by which everything relating to that state 
must finally be determined ; and though it may be supposed 
that a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resigna- 
tion (which they have been so infatuated as to make) of all 



SAMUEL ADAMS. iii 

their interests to a single person, or to a few, it can never 
be conceived that the resignation is obUgatory to their pos- 
terity, because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the 
whole that it should be so. 

These are the sentiments of the wisest and most virtuous 
champions of freedom. Attend to a portion on this subject 
from a book in our defence written, I had almost said, by 
the pen of inspiration, "I lay no stress," says he, "on char- 
ters; they derive their rights from a higher source. It is 
inconsistent with common sense to imagine that any people 
would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any 
such condition, or that the people from whom they withdrew 
should forever be masters of their property, and have power 
to subject them to any modes of government they pleased. 
And had there been express stipulations to this purpose in 
all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, 
be no more bound by them than if it had been stipulated 
with them that they should go naked, or expose themselves 
to the incursions of wolves and tigers." 

Such are the opinions of every virtuous and enlightened 
patriot in Great Britain. Their petition to Heaven is, 
"That there may be one free country left upon earth, to 
which they may fly when venality, luxury, and vice shall 
have completed the ruin of liberty there." 

Courage, then, my countrymen! Our contest is not only 
whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall 
be left to mankind an ayslum on earth for civil and religious 
liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause as 
incontestable, the only question is. What is best for us to 
pursue in our present circumstances? 



112 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

The doctrine of dependence upon Great Britain is, I be- 
lieve, generally exploded ; but as I would attend to the 
honest weakness of the simplest of men, you will pardon 
me if I ofifer a few words on this subject. 

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of 
the world, three millions of souls united in one common 
cause. We have large armies well disciplined and appoint- 
ed, with commanders ° inferior to none in military skill, 
and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished 
with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expec- 
tations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our suc- 
cess with their alliances. There are instances of, I would 
say, an almost astonishing Providence in our favor; our 
success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith 
to infidels ° ; so that we may truly say it is not our own 
arm which has saved us. 

The hand of Heaven seems to have led us on to be, per- 
haps, humble instruments and means In the great Providen- 
tial dispensation which is completing. We have fled from 
the political Sodom ; let us not look back lest we perish and 
become a monument of infamy and derision to the world. 
For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better pre- 
paration for defense; more infatuation of counsel among 
our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? 
The same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure 
us our liberties, will secure us a glorious independence and 
support us in the dignity of free, Imperial States. We 
cannot suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and 
dissipated nation more friendly to America, or created In 
them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. We can, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 113 

therefore, expect a restoration and establishment of our 
privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have re- 
ceived from their want of power, from their fears, and not 
from their virtues. The unanimity and valor which will 
affect an honorable peace can render a future contest for 
our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain 
down the wolf, is a madman if he lets him loose without 
drawing his teeth and paring his nails. 

From the day on which an accommodation ° takes place 
between England and America on any other terms than as 
independent states, I shall date the ruin of this country. 
A politic minister will study to lull us into security by 
granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm 
sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue which the 
violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. 
In a state of tranquility, wealth and luxury, our descendants 
would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal 
which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of cor- 
ruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union 
which renders our resistance formidable. When the spirit 
of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success 
to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin, 
and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned 
minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any 
should yet remain among us — remember that a Warren and 
a Montgomery are numbered among the dead! Contem- 
plate the mangled bodies of your countrymen and then say, 
what should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid not 
our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and 
plough and sow and reap, to glut the avarice of the men 



114 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our 
blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth ! If ye love 
wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than 
the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We 
ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the 
hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon 
you, and may posterity forget that ye were our country- 
men. 

To unite the Supremacy of Great Britain and the -Liberty 
of America is utterly impossible. So vast a continent and 
at such a distance from the seat of empire, will every day 
grow more unmanageable. The motion of so unwieldy a 
body cannot be directed with any dispatch and uniformity, 
without committing to the Parliament of Great Britain pow- 
ers inconsistent with our freedom. The authority and force 
which would be absolutely necessary for the preservation of 
the peace and good order of this continent would put all our 
valuable rights within the reach of that nation. 

As the administration of government requires firmer and 
more numerous supports in proportion to its extent, the bur- 
thens imposed on us would be excessive, and we should have 
the melancholy prospect of their increasing on our posterity. 
The scale of officers, from the rapacious and needy com- 
missioner, to the haughty governor, and from the governor 
with his hungry train to perhaps a licentious and prodigal 
viceroy, must be upheld by you and your children. The 
fleets and armies which will be employed to silence your 
murmurs and complaints must be supported by the fruits 
of your industry." 

And yet, with all this enlargement of the expense and 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



115 



powers of government, the administration of it at such a 
distance and over so extensive a territory, must necessarily 
fail of putting the laws into vigorous execution, removing 
private oppressions, and forming plans for the advance- 
ment of agriculture and commerce, and preserving the vast 
empire in any tolerable peace and security. If our poster- 
ity retain any spark of patriotism, they can never tamely 
submit to any such burthens. This country will be made 
the field of bloody contention till it gains that independence 
for which nature formed it. It is, therefore, injustice and 
cruelty to our offspring, and would stamp us with the char- 
acter of baseness and cowardice, to leave the salvation of 
this country to be worked out by them with accumulated 
difficulty and danger. 

Prejudice, I confess, may warp our judgments. Let us 
hear the decisions ° of Englishmen who cannot be suspect- 
ed of partiality : "The Americans," they say, "are but 
little short of half our number. To this number they have 
grown from a small body of settlers by a very rapid in- 
crease. The probability is that they will go on to increase, 
and that in fifty or sixty years they will be double our num- 
ber and form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of 
states, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the arts and 
accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human 
life. In that period will they be still bound to acknowledge 
that supremacy over them which we now claim ? Can there 
be any person who will assert this or whose mind does not 
revolt at the idea of a vast continent, holding all that is 
valuable to it, at the discretion of a handful of people on the 
other side of the Atlantic? But if at that period this would 



ii6 SAMUEL ADAAIS. 

be unreasonable, what makes it otherwise now ? Draw the 
line if you can. But there is still a greater difficulty. 

"Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and 
virtue, and its legislature consists of a body of able and in- 
dependent men, who govern with wisdom and justice. The 
time may come when all will be reversed ; when its excellent 
constitution of government will be subverted ; when, pressed 
by debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an in- 
crease of revenue from every distant province, in order to 
case its own burdens ; when the influence of the crown, 
strengthened by luxury and by an universal profligacy of 
manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every 
fence of liberty, and rendered us a nation of tame and con- 
tented vassals ; when a general election will be nothing but 
a general auction of boroughs, and when the Parliament, the 
grand council of the nation, and once the faithful guardian 
of the state and a terror to evil ministers, will be degen- 
erated into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, al- 
ways ready to confirm any measures, and little more than 
a public court for registering royal edicts. Such, it is pos- 
sible, may sometime or other be the state of Great Britain. 
What will at that period be the duty of the colonies? Will 
they be still bound to unconditional submission ? ]\Iust 
they always continue an appendage to our government, and 
follow it implicitly through every change that can happen 
to it? Wretched condition, indeed, of millions of freemen 
as good as ourselves ! Will you say that we now govern 
equitably and that there is no danger of such revolution ? 
Would to God this were true! But will you not always 
say the same? Who shall judge whether we govern equi- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 117 

tably or not? Can you give the Colonies any security that 
such a period will never come ?" No ! The period, coiuitry- 
men, is already come! The calamities were at our door. 
The rod of oppression was raised over us. We were roused 
from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until 
we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our 
posterity. This day we are called upon to give a glorious 
example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced 
to view only in speculation. ° This day presents the world 
with the most august spectacle its annals have ever unfolded 
— millions of freemen deliberately and voluntarily forming 
themselves into a society for their common defence and 
common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, 
and Sidney! Will it not add to your benevolent joys to 
behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and 
evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your sys- 
tems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty which 
you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recom- 
mending to mankind ! 

Other nations have received their laws from conquerors ; 
some are indebted for a constitution to the sufferings of 
their ancestors through revolving centuries. The people of 
this country alone have formally and deliberately chosen a 
government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced 
consent bound themselves to a social compact. Here no 
man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable 
distinction or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name 
of hereditary authority. He wdio has most zeal and ability 
to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the 
public. This is the only line of distinction drawn by na- 



ii8 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

ture. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which 
nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to 
burst the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face 
of the sun. 

Some who would persuade us that they have tender feel- 
ings for future generations, while they are insensible to the 
happiness of the present, are perpetually foreboding a train 
of dissensions under our popular system. Such men's rea- 
soning amounts to this : give up all that is valuable to 
Great Britain, and then you will have no inducements to 
quarrel among yourselves ; or suffer yourselves to be chained 
down by your enemies, that you may not be able to fight 
with your friends. 

This is an insult on your virtue as well as your common 
sense. Your unanimity this day and through the course of 
the war is a decisive refutation of such invidious predic- 
tions. Our enemies have already had evidence that our 
present constitution ° contains in it the justice and ardor of 
freedom, and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute 
system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be 
uniform and coherent ; but fluctuation, contradiction, and in- 
consistency of councils must be expected under those gov- 
ernments where every revolution in the ministry of a court 
produces one in the state. Such being the folly and pride 
of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures directly 
opposite to those of their predecessors. 

We shall neither be exposed to the necessary convulsions 
of elective monarchies, nor to the want of wisdom, forti- 
tude, and virtue to which hereditary succession is liable. In 
your hands it will be to perpetuate a prudent, active, and 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



19 



just legislature, which will never expire until you your- 
selves lose the virtues which give it existence. 

And, brethren and fellow-countrymen, if it was ever 
granted to mortals to trace the designs of Providence, and 
interpret its manifestations in favor of their cause, we may, 
with humility of soul, cry out ''Not unto us, not unto us, 
but to thy Name be the praise." The confusion of the de- 
vices among our enemies, and the rage of the elements 
against them, have done almost as much toward our success 
as either our councils or our arms. 

The time at which this attempt on our liberties was made, 
when we were ripened into maturity, had acquired a know- 
ledge of war, and were free from the incursions of enemies 
in this country, the gradual advances of our oppressor, en- 
abling us to prepare for our defence, the unusual fertility 
of our lands and the clemency of the seasons, the success 
which at first attended our feeble arms, producing unanimity 
among our friends, and reducing our internal foes to ac- 
quiescence — these are all strong and palpable marks and 
assurances, that Providence is yet gracious unto Zion, that 
it will turn away the captivity of Jacob. 

Our ° glorious reformers, when they broke through the 
fetters of superstition, effected more than could be expect- 
ed from an age so darkened. But they left much to be 
done by their posterity. They lopped off, indeed, some of 
the branches of popery, but they left the root and stock 
when they left us under the domination of human systems 
and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attri- 
buted to revelation only. They dethroned one ursurper 
only to raise up another. They refused allegiance to the 



120 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Pope, only to place the civil magistrate in the throne of 
Christ, vested with authority to enact laws, and inflict pen- 
alties in his kingdom. And if we now cast our eyes over the 
nations of the earth, we shall find that instead of possessing 
the pure religion of the Gospel, they may be divided either 
into infidels, who deny the truth, or politicans, who make 
religion a stalking horse for their ambition, or professors, 
who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more at- 
tentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the or- 
acles of truth. 

The civil magistrate has everywhere contaminated religion 
by making it an engine of policy ; and freedom of thought 
and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience 
driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their 
course to this happy country as their last asylum. Let us 
cherish the noble guests, and shelter them under the wings 
of an universal toleration. Be this the seat of unbounded 
religious freedom. She will bring with her in her train, in- 
dustry, wisdom, and commerce. She thrives most when 
left to shoot forth in her natural luxuriance, and asks from 
human policy only not to be checked in her growth by arti- 
ficial encouragements. 

Thus, by the beneficence of Providence, we shall behold 
our empire arising, founded on justice and the voluntary 
consent of the people, and giving full exercise of those fa- 
culties and rights which most ennoble our species. Besides 
the advantages of liberty and the most equal constitution, 
heaven has given us a country with every variety of climate 
and soil, pouring forth in abundance whatever is necessary 
for the support, comfort, and strength of a nation. With- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 1 21 

in our own borders we possess all the means of sustenance, 
defence, and commerce ; at the same time, these advantages 
are so distributed among the different states of this con- 
tinent, as if nature had in view to proclaim to us ! — be united 
among yourselves, and you will want ° nothing from the 
rest of the world. 

The more Northern States most amply supply us with 
every necessary, and many of the luxuries of life : with iron, 
timber, and masts for ships of commerce or of war; with 
flax for the manufactory of linen, and seed either for oil 
or exportation. 

So abundant are our harvests that almost every part raised 
more than double the quantity of grain requisite for the 
support of its inhabitants. From Georgia to the Carolinas 
we have, as well for our own wants as for the purpose of 
supplying the wants of other powers, indigo, rice, hemp, 
naval stores and lumber. 

Virginia and Maryland teem with wheat, Indian corn, 
and tobacco. Every nation whose harvest is precarious, 
or whose lands yield not those commodities which we cul- 
tivate, will gladly exchange their superfluities and manu- 
factures for ours. 

We have already received many and larger cargoes of 
clothing, military stores, etc., from our commerce with for- 
eign powers, and, in spite of tlie efforts of the boasted navy 
of England, we shall continue to profit ° by this connec- 
tion. 

The want of our naval stores has already increased the 
price of these articles to a great height, especially in Britain. 
Without our lumber, it will be impossible for those haughty 



122 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

islanders to convey the products of the West Indies to their 
own ports ; for while they may with difficulty effect it, but 
without our assistance their resources must soon fail. In- 
deed, the West India Islands appear as the necessary ap- 
pendages to this our empire. They must owe their support 
to it, and ere long, I doubt not, some of them will from 
necessity wish to enjoy the benefit of our protection. ° 

These natural advantages will enable us to remain inde- 
pendent of the world, or make it the interest of European 
powers to court our alliance and aid in protecting us against 
the invasions of others. What argument, therefore, do we 
want to show the equity of our conduct ; or motive of in- 
terest to recommend it to our prudence? Nature points out 
the path, and our enemies have obliged us to pursue it. 

If there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer a depen- 
dence on Great Britain, to the dignity and happiness of liv- 
ing a member of a free and independent nation, let me tell 
him that necessity now demands what the generous principle 
of patriotism should have dictated. 

We have now no other alternative than independence, or 
the most ignominous and galling servitude. The legions of 
our enemies thicken on our plains ; desolation and death 
mark their bloody career ; whilst the mangled corpses of our 
countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven : 
''Will you permit our posterity to groan under the galling 
chains of our murderers ? Has our blood been expended in 
vain ? Is the only reward which our constancy till death has 
obtained for our country, that it should be sunk into a deeper 
and more ignominious vassalage? Recollect who are the 
men that demand your submission ; to whose decrees you are 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



123 



invited to pay obedience. Men who, unmindful of their 
relation to you as brethren, of your long implicit submis- 
sion to their laws, of the sacrifice which you and your fore- 
fathers made of your natural advantages for commerce to 
their avarice — formed a deliberate plan to wrest from you 
the small pittance of property which they had permitted you 
to acquire. Remember that the men who wish to rule over 
you are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, an- 
nulled the sacred contracts which had been made with your 
ancestors ; conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery 
to compel you to submission by insult and murder — who 
called your patience, cowardice ; your piety, hypocrisy." 

Countrymen, the men v/ho now invite you to surrender 
your rights into their hands, are the men who have let loose 
the merciless savages to riot in the blood of their brethren ; 
who have dared to establish popery triumphant in our land ; 
who have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted them 
to assassinate your wives and children. 

These are the men ° to whom we are exhorted to sacri- 
fice the blessings which Providence holds out to us, — the 
happiness, the dignity of uncontrolled freedom and inde- 
pendence. 

Let not your generous mdignation be directed against any 
among us, who may advise so absurd and maddening a 
measure. Their number is but few and daily decreases ; 
and the spirit which can render them patient of slavery, will 
render them contemptible enemies. 

Our Union is now complete; our Constitution composed, 
established, and approved. You are now the guardians of 
your own liberties. We may justly address you as the 



124 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Decemviri did the Romans, and say: "Nothing that we pro- 
pose can pass into a law without your consent. Be your- 
selves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which 
your happiness depends.'^ 

You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the 
whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary 
auxiliaries. ° The hearts of your soldiers beat high with 
the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of 
their cause ; and while they grasp their swords, can look up 
to heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of 
wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn 
religion into derision, and would for higher wages direct 
their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on 
then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to heaven 
for past success and confidence of it in the future. For my 
own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you 
the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish 
dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with 
those of a Warren or a Montgomery, it is that these Ameri- 
can States may never cease to be free and independent! 



SAMUEL ADAMS. ,z; 

ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF ADAMS. 

ADAMS AND GOVERNOR GAGE. 

Governor Gage arrived in Boston in May, 1774, and 
presnming upon the truth of a maxim which originated 
among British politicians, and was generally believed 
there, that "every man has his price,'' offered a heavy 
"consideration," through Colonel Fenton, his agent, to 
Samuel Adams. 

But those minions of regal power and rotten aristoc- 
racy were destined to learn that there is such a thing as 
patriotism, which thrones cannot awe nor bribes corrupt. 

Colonel Fenton waited upon Mr. Adams, and ex- 
pressed to him the great desire of the British Govern- 
ment to settle the troubles in the colonies peacefully. 

He said to him that he had been authorized by Gov- 
ernor Gage to assure him, that he was instructed by the 
Home government to confer upon him such rewards as 
would be satisfactory, on condition that he would engage 
to cease his opposition to the measures of the British 
Crown. 

He added that it was the advice of Governor Gage to 
Mr. Adams not to incur the further displeasure of the 
king, as his conduct had already made him liable to trial 
for treason. But, he added further, if Mr. Adams would 
change his political course, he would not only receive 
great personal advantage, but would make his peace 
with the king. 

Mr. Adams, glowing with indignation at such attacks 
upon his honor and patriotism, first deinanded of the 



126 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

messenger, Kenton, a solemn pledge that he would re- 
turn to Gage his reply just as it was given. He then 
rose up, and in a firm manner, said: 

''I trust that I have long since made my peace with 
the King of kings. No personal consideration shall in- 
duce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country. 

"Tell Governor Gage it is the advice of Samuel Ad- 
ams, to him, no longer to insult the feelings of an ex- 
asperated people." 

ADAMS AND HANCOCK. 

Another sagacious movement on the part of Samuel 
Adams, and one of the most profitable deeds of his patri- 
otic life, was his winning the very rich and accomplished 
John Hancock to the popular cause. The means of ac- 
complishing this have never been made known, but as 
to the author of the achievement there is no doubt. The 
cause of freedom throughout the world is greatly indebt- 
ed to both men. One gave to it his great mind, and the 
other his splendid fortune; one obtained cotemporary 
fame, the other, like all heroes of the highest order re- 
posed on posterity. 

But it is easy to suppose, that the watchful and dili- 
gent votary of liberty felt no little complacency in gain- 
ing so potent an auxiliary to the cause he so dearly 
loved. 

One day John and Samuel Adams were walking in 
the Boston Mall, and when they came opposite the state- 
ly mansion of Mr. Hancock, the latter, turning to the 
former, said, with emphasis; 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 127 

^'I have done a very good thing for our cause in the 
course of the past week, by enlisting the master of that 
house in it. He is well disposed, and has great riches, 
and we can give him consequence to enjoy them." 

And Mr. Hancock did not disappoint his expectations; 
for when they gave him the "consequence," so genial to 
his nature, by making him President of Congress, he put 
everything at stake, in opposition to British encroach- 
ments. 

THE PROSCRIPTION OF ADAMS AND HANCOCK. 

June 12, 1775, Gage proclaimed martial law. In this 
proclamation was the famous proscription of Hancock 
and Adams, "in which his Majesty's gracious pardon was 
offered to all persons who should forthwith lay down 
their arms and return to the duties of peaceable subjects, 
excepting only from the benefit of such pardon, Samuel 
Adams and John Hancock, whose offenses are of too fla- 
gitious a nature to admit of any other than condign 
punishment." 

This proscription but added new lustre to the patri- 
ots' names, giving them enviable distinction and undy- 
ing fame. 

In the Boston "6^(^^<?//^," June 24, 1775, appeared a 
rhymed version, of which we give one stanza: 

"But then I must out of this plan lock 
Both Samuel Adams and John Hancock, 
For these vile traitors (like bedentures), 
Must be tricked up at all adventures, 
As any proffer of a pardon 
Would only tend these rogues to harden." 



128 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

I.OYAI.TY TO NON-IMPORTATION. 

In the Boston ^'^ Gazette ^""^ September 9, 1771, over the 
signature, "Candidas," Mr. Adams expresses his inflex- 
ible determination and singleness of vision. 

"Should we acquiesce in their taking threepence only 
because they please, we at least tacitly consent that they 
should have sovereign control of our purses, and when 
they please they will claim an equal right, and, perhaps, 
plead a precedent from it to take a shilling or a pound. 

"At present we have the reins in our own hands; we 
can easily avoid paying tribute by abstaining from the 
use of those articles by which it is extorted from us." 

This advice he carried into practice in his own house. 
Tea was interdicted almost from the first hint of persist- 
ent taxation. A marked preference was shown for every- 
thing of American manufacture. 

Mr. Adams never wore nor permitted his family to 
wear English cloth. "It behooves every American," he 
went on to say, "to encourage home manufactures, that 
our oppressors may feel through their pockets the effects 
of their blind folly." 

ADAMS' NEW CI.OTHES. 

As an instance of the popular esteem in which Mr. 
Adams was held, his daughter relates that before his de- 
parture for Congress in 1774, as the family were assem- 
bled at supper, a knock at the door announced a well- 
known tailor, who, refusing to answer any questions, 
insisted on measuring Adams for a suit of clothes ; he 
was followed by a fashionable hatter, then by a shoe 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 129 

maker, and several others on similar errands. A few 
days after a large trunk, addressed to Mr. Samuel Ad- 
ams, was brought to the house and deposited in the 
doorway. 

It contained a complete suit of clothes, two pairs of 
shoes in the best style, a set of silver shoe-buckles, a set 
gold knee-buckles, a set of gold sleeve-buttons (still pre- 
ser\'ed by a descendant and namesake), an elegant 
cocked hat, gold-headed cane, red cloak^ and other 
minor articles of wearing apparel. 

The cane and sleeve-buttons (which Mr. Adams wore 
when he signed the Declaration of Independence), bore 
the device of the Liberty cap. — Harper^ s Magazine^ 
July, i8j6. 

A MIXTURE OF TKA. 

In the fall of 1776, when Mr. John Adams and Mr. 
Samuel Adams were both in Philadelphia, the former 
sent his wife, by Mr. Gerry, a pound of green tea as a 
choice present, paying for the same upwards of forty 
shillings. Through some mistake on the part of the 
messenger, the canister was given to Mrs. Samuel in- 
stead of to Mrs. John. 

On hospitality intent, the former invited the latter, 
with some friends, to a tea-drinking. Mrs. John praised 
the tea which Mrs. Samuel's sweetheart had sent her, 
and grumbled not a little in her next letter to John that 
he should not have been as attentive as his kinsman. 
The cream of the joke appeared, however, when Mrs. 
John discovered it was her own tea with which she had 



130 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

been so bountifully entertained. Of course, when the 
error was discovered, Mrs. Samuel returned all that re- 
mained. 

ADAMS' SOCIAL CHARACTER. 

Mr. Adams has been represented as austere, strait- 
laced and puritani- 
cal, permitting neith- 
er levity nor amuse- 
ment in his house- 
hold. But this is in- 
correct as to his 
home life. 

He delighted in 
young society and 
the sports of children; 
had always pleasant 
w^ords for them, and 
was one of those be- 
nignant characters 
whom children ap- 
proach with confi- 
dence and love. 

His own recrea- 
tions were few — either riding with a friend into the 
country, or sailing in the harbor, it may be to test one 
of his friend Hancock's newly launched ships; perhaps 
an excursion to Harvard College, his beloved Alma Ma- 
ter, or to the light house; a rough jaunt over sharp 
rocks to the point of the island opposite Nantucket,where 
there was a hideous cave containing marine curiosities. 




Statue of Adams, Adams Square, Boston. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. i^i 

His only personal accomplishment was singing, for 
which he possessed both fine natural taste and "the 
voice of an angel." His two children, whose education 
he himself superintended, idolized him as an affectionate, 
tender father and wise friend. 

FEARLESSNESS AND BOLDNESS. 

Samuel Adams was fearless of all combinations of hu- 
man power. Pure and exalted patriotism was the bold- 
est feature in his character. 

Of him it may be truly said, that the fear of man 
never fell upon him; it never entered into his thoughts 
much less was it seen in 'his actions. 

He was by original temperament mild, conciliating 
and candid; and yet he was remarkable for an imcom- 
promising firmness. 

Grattan said of Fox: "He stood against the current of 
the court; he stood against the tide of the people; he 
stood against both united. 

"He was the isthmus lashed by the weaves of democ- 
racy, and by the torrent of despotism, unaffected by 
either and superior to both; the Marpesian rock that 
struck its base to the centre, and raised its forehead to 
the skies." 

And such was Samuel Adams. He was the most pu- 
ritanic of all our statesmen. Others were endued with 
the more splendid gifts, and more flexile powers of pop- 
ular harangue; but he, above all his contemporaries, 
glorified with his incorruptible poverty the Revolution 
which he was the first to excite and the last to abandon. 



132 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

BREADTH OF VIEW. 

It has been said of Abraham Lincohi that he saw 
through his lawyer's brief, ''the general principles of the 
divine administration." And so in all the petty disputes 
over charters and taxes, Samuel Adams kept in view 
Milton's true ideal of a "Just Commonwealth." 

It was certainly an historic anomaly, when, to quote 
from Burke's great speech on American taxation, "So 
paltry a sum as three-pence in the eyes of the financier, 
and so insignificant an article as tea, in the eyes of the 
philosopher, should have shaken the pillars of a com- 
mercial empire, that circled the whole globe." 

But both Edmund Burke and Samuel Adams knew 
that it was not paltry taxes that gave offense, but taxes 
imposed at the zvrong end of the line. It was not par- 
liamentary authority that maddened, but government 
without the consent of the governed. 

The revolution was a battle where 

"English law and English thought 
'Gainst the self-will of England fought." 

"The king and the parliament," as one has said, "were 
the Revolutionists, not our fathers." They were the 
true heirs of Simon de Montfort, wdio laid the founda- 
tions of the House of Connnons, and of the archbishop, 
Stephen Langton, w'ho headed the barons at Runnymede. 
— Dr. John Henry Barrows. 

INTEGRITY. 

Integrity was not uncommon during our Revolution, 
but in Samuel Adams it was proverbial. He might 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 133 

have declared at any time, without fear of contradiction, 
with Cardinal de Retz: 

"In the most difficult times of the Republic I never 
deserted the State; in her most prosperous fortune I 
never tasted of her sweets; in her most desperate circum- 
stances I knew not fear." 

ADAMS AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER. 

As an orator, Samuel' Adams was peculiarly fitted for 
the times in which he had fallen. His eloquence was 
characteristic of its author, full of massive simplicity 
and pungent common sense. 

He moved much among the masses of mankind, and 
knew how to sway their thoughts. This Apostle of Lib- 
erty, like the heralds of salvation, began first to preach 
to the common people, and ultimately attained an in- 
fluence that made despots tremble on their thrones. 

One great secret of the power of his popular address, 
probably lay in the unity of his purpose and the energy 
of his pursuit. 

He passionately loved freedom, and subordinated ev- 
erything to its attainment. This kind of inspiration is 
a necessary pre-requisite to eminent success. 

Samuel Adams had more logic in his composition 
than rhetoric, and was accustomed to convince the judg- 
ment rather than inflame the passions; and yet, when the 
occasion demanded, he could give vent to the ardent and 
patriotic indignation of which his heart was often full. 

Whenever he arose to address a popular assembly, 
every murmur was hushed at the first flash of that 



134 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



"sparkling eye beneath a veteran brow." Expectation 
was on tip-toe for something weighty from his lips, and 
was seldom disappointed. 

"Eloquence," said Bolingbroke, "must flow like a 
stream that is fed by an abundant spring, and not spout 



'^l 



i/^ 



h-^^" 








Revolutionary Soldiers' Monument, Lexington. Mass. 

forth a little frothy water on some gaudy day, and re- 
main dry the rest of the year." — Magoon^^^ Orators of the 
Revohition?'* 

Dr. Barrows says: "Samuel Adams wielded a sinewy 
logic which reminds us both of Junius and of Webster. 
A Tory wit lampooned him as a sachem of vast elocu- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 135 

tion, 'the words of whose mouth were sufficient to fill 
the mouths of millions in America.' " 

The encomium which Ben Jonson pronounced on 
Lord Bacon's speaking may be justly applied to Samuel 
Adams- "There happened in my time one noble speak- 
er who was full of gravity in his speech. His language 
was nobly censorious. 

"No man ever spoke more neatly, more freely, more 
wei<.htily, or suffered less empthiess, less idleness in 
wha't he uttered. No member of his speech but consist- 
ed of his own graces. . , ^ , • 

"His hearers could not cough or look aside from him 
without loss. He commanded when he spoke, and had 
his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. 

"No man had their affections more in his power. 
The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he 
should make an end." 

KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN NATURE. 
A marked peculiarity of Samuel Adams was his pro- 
found and accurate acquaintance with the nature of man. 
He had studied its secret springs, and could move them 

at pleasure. 

He knew that the human heart is like the earth. 
"You may sow it, and plant it, and build upon it in all 
manner of forms; but the earth, however cultivated by 
man, continues none the less spontaneously to produce 
its verdures, its wild flowers, and all varieties of natural 

fruits." . , ,. . , 

The identity of this planet on which we live is not 



136 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

more perpetual than that of human nature. Its latent 
impulses we must know. Its spontaneous productions 
we must learn to employ, if we would toil among man- 
kind with success. 

RULING PASSION AND AIM. 

The love of justice was his ruling passion; it was the 
main-spring of all his conduct. He made it a matter of 
conscience to discharge every duty with scrupulous fidel- 
ity and scrupulous zeal. 

The freedom and prosperity of his country; the imion 
of all her sons in a common and national fraternity; and 
the advancement of moral truth, harmony and virtue, 
were the grand objects of his unremitted pursuit. 

HOPEFULNESS AND PIETY. 

During the most gloomy period of our national strug- 
gle, when others were desponding, he always kept up 
cheerful spirits, gently rebuked the fears of others, and 
expressing his unwavering reliance upon the protection 
of an overruling Providence, who, he had felt assured 
from the first w^ould conduct the country through all its 
trials to deliverance and prosperous repose. 

As a patriot, he toiled incessantly, without complaint; 
as a religious man, he trusted in God, and was not con- 
founded. 

DETERMINATION. 

When Mr. Galloway and some of his timid adherents 
were for entering their protest in Congress against an 
open rupture with Britain, Samuel Adams, rising slowly 



SAMUEL ADAMS. i.?7 

from his seat, said: "I should advise persisting in our 
struggle for liberty, though it were revealed from heaven 
that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish, and 
only one freeman of a thousand survive and retain his 

liberty. . , 

"That one freeman must possess more, virtue and en- 
joy more happiness than a thousand slaves Let him 
propagate his like, and transmit to them what he had 
so nobly preserved." 

THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. 

Plain, quiet, indigent, sagacious, patriotic old Puritan 
as he was, now melting his stern soul into unwonted 
tears of jov, and pacing the "Common" with exu ting 
step, because that morning he had won that chivalrous 
young aristocrat, John Hancock, to the defense o the 
popular cause; and now glancing, with a sly twinkle ,n 
his eve, at fiery resolutions pendant from the "Tree of 
Liberty," purporting to have been produced by the 
serene goddess herself, and which, he well knows, first 
saw the light by his solitary lamp; and, anon, ensconced 
behind the deacon's seat in "Old South," with an im- 
mense throng crowding the double galleries to the very 
ceilino-, he stealthily passes up a pungent resolution 
which kindles some more excitable mouth-piece, and 
finally inflames the heaving and swelling mass ^^'lth 
spontaneous cries, ^^Boston harbor a tea-pot to-mght — 
why, he was, indeed, a power behind the throne; greater 
than the throne, he ruled the winds that moved the 
viZM^s.—Magoon, '^ Orators of the Revolution:' 



138 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



AN EBULLITION OF LOYALTY. 

Before his father's death and his assumption of the pa- 
ternal business of brewing and making, young Adams was 
an accountant for a short time in the house of Thomas 
Gushing, whose son, of the same name, was in after years 
speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, of 
which Samuel Adams was clerk. Thus the elder Gushing 
and the elder Adams were fellow merchants and actors in 
the stirring times when, by pitting themselves against the 
valor of French soldiers, the colonists were commencing to 
learn their own strength, while the two sons were leaders in 
the era when that same strength and fertility of resource 
were pitted against the mother country. The elder Adams, 
as one of the most successful business men of his day, was 
the advocate of a popular currency wdiich Great Britain 
could not control and, although a staunch upholder of the 
mother country against France, was, at the same time, keen- 
ly alive to the material interests of Massachusetts and the 
Golonists in general. It was in his character as a popular 
leader that the son desired to emulate the father, and both 
the elder Gushing and the elder Adams early gave him up as 
a commercial subject. As has been stated, when he took 
his Master's degree at Gambridge, then being just of age, 
he had enunciated, in his graduating thesis, the right of 
resistance to preserve the life of the commonwealth. It 
may be that the bitter fight led by his father against the 
Tories, who finally succeeded in destroying the home cur- 
rency put forth by the Land Bank Scheme, had something 
to do with the rebellious attitude assumed by the young 
collegiate. It is perhaps more probable that the essay was 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



139 



a temporary ebullition of bold general sentiment, and that 
Samuel Adams did not then have even a dim vision of phy- 
sical resistance to King George. At all events, several years 
thereafter he and some of his political friends formed a 
club for the discussion of public affairs, by debate and in 
the columns of the newly established "Public Advertiser," 
and Samuel Adams, putting forth a rather heavy essay on 
"Loyalty and Sedition," writes : 

"It has been a question much controverted in the world 
what form of government is best and in what system lib- 
erty is best consulted and preserved. I cannot say that I 
am wholly free from that prejudice which generally pos- 
sesses men in favor of their own country and the manners 
they have been used to from their infancy. But I must de- 
clare for my own part, that there is no form of civil gov- 
ernment, which I have ever heard of, appears to me so well 
calculated to preserve this blessing-, or to secure to its sub- 
jects all the most valuable advantages of civil society, as 
the English. For in none that I have ever met with is the 
power of the governors and the rights of the governed more 
nicely adjusted, or the power which is necessary in the very 
nature of government to be intrusted in the hands of some, 
by wiser checks prevented from growing exorbitant. "^ 

"From this happy constitution of our mother country, 
ours in this is copied or rather improved upon. Our invalu- 
able charter secures to us all the English liberties, besides 
which we have some additional privileges which the com- 
mon people there have not. Our fathers had so severely 
felt the effects of tyranny and the weight of the bishop's 



140 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



yoke, that they underwent the greatest difficulties and toils to 
secure to themselves and transmit to their posterity those in- 
valuable blessings ; and we, their posterity, are this day 
reaping the fruits of their toils. Happy beyond expression ! 
— in the form of our government, in the liberty we enjoy — 
if we know our own happiness and how to improve it." 
The balance of the peroration was devoted to a plea for 
virtue without which constitutional government and the 
liberties enjoyed under it were mockeries. 

MORI-: ABOUT COPLFa's PORTRAIT. 

Reference has been made to the portrait of Samuel Adams 
which is the frontispiece of this sketch. Copley, a famous 
portrait painter of the early revolutionary times, attended 
the investigation of the massacre by the civil authorities 
and testified against the soldiers. The bearing of Air. 
Adams in the subsequent movements of the patriots intensi- 
fied the artist's admiration for the leader, which, in part, 
may account for the strength and animation of the portrait. 
Prof. Hosmer, whose great-great-grandfather was an as- 
semblyman and staunch supporter of Adams, while the lat- 
ter was warring against Hutchinson and the British regi- 
ments, thus describes the likeness: 'Tor this portrait he 
has chosen to give Samuel Adams as he stood in the scene 
with Hutchinson in the council chamber. Against a back- 
ground suggestive of gloom and disturbance, the figure looks 
forth. The face and form are marked by great strength. 
The brow is high and broad and from it sweeps back the 
abundant hair, streaked with gray. The blue eyes are full 
of light and force, the nose is prominent, the lips and chin, 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 141 

brought strongly out as the head is thrown somewhat back, 
are full of determination. In the right hand a scroll is 
held firmly grasped, the energy of the moment appearing 
in the cording of the sinews as the sheets bend in the pres- 
sure. The left hand is thrown forth in impassioned ges- 
ture, the forefinger pointing to the provincial charter, which, 
with the great seal affixed, lies half unrolled in the fore- 
ground. The plain dark red attire announces a decent and 
simple respectability. The well-knit figure looks as fixed 
as if its strength came from the granite on which the 
Adamses planted themselves when they came to America; 
the countenance speaks in every line the man." 

ONE COOL PATRIOT. 

Naturally during the progress of the shooting aft'ray 
which history designates as the Boston Massacre, the citi- 
zens were generally in a state of wild excitement. When a 
crowd is thus fired upon, it seldom happens that the real 
participants are those who suft'er most. So of the three 
w^ho w^ere killed in the Boston Massacre only one, the mul- 
atto Attucks, appears to have taken any part in the attack 
on the soldiery. 

The one cool patriot when the firing commenced, was 
standing in his own doorway at the corner of King and 
Congress streets. To him the result of the British vol- 
ley w^as too balls in the arm. Turning slowly to the group 
of friends who were w^th him he is said to have placidly 
remarked, "I declare, I do think these soldiers ought to be 
talked to." 



1^2 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

With other good citizens he doubtless had confidence in 
the talking abilities of Sam Adams, and subsequent events 
proved that the British soldiers and their captain were not 
only arrested but were talked to through Father Adams. 

WHAT ADAMS SAID AT LEXINGTON. 

After the adjournment of Congress, on April 15, 1775. 
Samuel' Adams, with his moneyed, bold, and aristocratic 
friend of the historic signature, went to the house of Rev. 
Jonas Clark, at Lexington. Alessrs. Adams and Hancock, 
as the most dangerous of the rebels, were to be apprehended 
and sent to England to be tried for treason. At this time 
General Gage had two main objects in view — to seize the 
Concord stores of ammunition waiting for the minute men 
and to capture these fire-brands of men. 

At midnight of the i8th Paul Revere, having barely 
eluded the British regulars at Boston, dashed up to Mr. 
Clark's house and requested the sergeant of the eighth, men 
who were guarding Adams and Hancock, to admit him. 

Revere was finally admitted and within about an hour 
the militia were mustered on the meeting-house green and 
scouts sent out to learn about the regulars under Major 
Pitcairn. In the presence of Adams, Hancock, and Rev. Mr. 
Clark the muskets of the embattled farmers were loaded 
with powder and ball. 

By sunrise the continentals had stood their ground at 
Lexington until the enemy ''had been put in the wrong," 
according to Adams' statesmanlike advice, by firing upon 
them first ; a score of American martyrs offering them- 
selves as a sacrifice to the wisdom of that principle. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 143 

As the victorious regulars advanced toward Mr. Clark's 
house, Adams and Hancock retired through the sunny glist- 
ening fields toward Woburn, an adjacent village. 

"This is a fine day !" Adams exclaimed to one of his com- 
panions. 

"Very pleasant, indeed," was the answer. 

"I mean," replied the patriot, "This day is a glorious day 
for America !" 

And throughout the uncertainties and calamities of the 
succeeding years Samuel Adams never lost faith in the truth 
of that outburst. The story has been often told, but usually 
the patriotic portion of the conversation is solely given, the 
commonplace preliminary marks being omitted. 

THEY HOPED AGAINST HOPE. 

While preparations were being made through the Com- 
mittee of Correspondence, of which Adams was secretary, 
for the selection of delegates to a continental congress, Gov- 
ernor and General Gage appointed Salem, instead of Boston, 
as the meeting place of the General Court, or legislature. 
The Hub, according to Gage and the Tories, was the 
central hot-bed of all that was bad, and as the King had 
open designs against the person of Adams, the hottest hot- 
head of all the Bostonians, and now the popular idol, it was 
deemed suspicious by the Whigs that the assembly should 
be prorogued to meet at Salem. The date was June 7, 
and Adams, who had been unusually busy with affairs of 
the Committee of Safety, was late in arriving. 

"He is afraid to trust himself outside of Boston," whis- 
pered the Tories. 



144 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

"He has been seized by Gage's troops,'' murmured the 
Whigs. 

It was upon this occasion that the gold-laced Tory seat- 
ed himself in the chair reserved for Adams, the secretary, 
and was so unceremoniously ejected by the sarcasm of the 
patriot. Certain it was that upon that particular occasion 
his absence would have been more pleasant than his com- 
pany. 

ADAMS AND THE TEA-PARTY. 

The events leading up to the meeting in the Old South 
Church, when Samuel Adams gave the signal for the de- 
struction of the proscribed tea in Boston Harbor, were dom- 
inated by the subject of this sketch. He is supposed to have 
prepared the placard inviting the public of Boston and 
neighboring town to be present November 3, 1773, at Lib- 
erty Tree, to witness the oath of the consignee to reship 
their tea to London, the manifesto ending, "Show me the 
man that dares take this down." Adams, LTancock, and 
others were there, but the tea merchants were elsewhere. 
A favorite meeting place for informal conference was the 
printing office of Edes & Gill on Court street and a room 
over it. The town-meeting and the Man of the Town Meet- 
ing demanded more and more strenuously with the approach 
of the three tea-ships to Boston Harbor that the consignees 
resign, but withoiU effect. Then the Committee of Corre- 
spondence, embracing what were then Boston and the ad- 
joining towns, dispatched to the Whig leaders throughout 
the province their joint pledge to resist the landing of the 
hated stuff. The letter was written bv Mr. Adams, his style 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



H5 



being seen in such as this : "We think, gentlemen, that we 
are in duty bound to use our most strenuous endeavors to 
ward off the impending evil, and we are sure that upon a 
fair and cool inquiry into the nature and tendency of the 
ministerial plan, you will think this tea now coming to us 
more to be dreaded than plague and pestilence." 

"The first of the three ships loaded with tea arrived No- 
vember 28. It was the "Dartmouth," Captain Hall, and its 
Quaker owner was induced not to enter the vessel until the 
30th. On the afternoon of the preceding day a grand meet- 
ing was held in Faneuil Hall, at which Samuel Adams 
moved : "As the town have determined at a late meeting 
legally assembled that they will to the utmost of their power 
prevent the landing of the tea, the question be now put — 
whether this body are absolutely determined that the tea 
now arrived in Captain Hall shall be returned to the place 
whence it came." 

By the time the motion was unanimously carried, the 
crowd had reached such proportions that, in order to ac- 
commodate it, an adjournment was effected tO' Old South 
Church. There Mr. Adams' motion was again carried, and 
the following question was then put and unanimously an- 
swered in the affirmative : "Is it the firm resolution of this 
body that the tea shall not only be sent back, but that no 
duty shall be paid thereon?" 

It was at this point that Young, one of the committee ap- 
pointed under the call of the meeting "for the purpose of 
consulting, advising and determining upon the most proper 
and effectual method to prevent the unloading, receiving, 



,46 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

or vending of the detestable tea" claimed that ''the only way 
to get rid of it was to throw it overboard." 

Copley, the artist who painted the portraits of Adams 
and Hancock, was the son-in-law of Robert Clarke, one of 
the richest and most prominent of the tea-merchants. With- 
in the following two weeks which preceded the arrival of the 
other tea-ships and the carrying out of Young's suggestion, 
Copley essayed the role of mediator, but with what success 
all now know. 

ADAMS-OTIS SET-TO. 

Massachusetts took the lead in uniting the Colonies by the 
famous circular letter which proposed a general course of 
action in opposing oppressive measures of royalty. Although 
on the face of it, the movement was a simple effort at joint 
petition, the mother country saw the danger to her su- 
premacy in any form of Colonial union. The governor was 
directed to order the assembly to rescind the letter and the 
British ship ''Romley," from Halifax, soon appeared in Bos- 
ton Harbor to give emphasis to his demand. The assembly 
through its spokesmen, Adams and Otis, emphatically re- 
fused to rescind the letter, demanding at the same time that 
the British ship should be removed from Boston Harbor 
and the British governor from Massachusetts soil. Adams 
and Otis were named as the arch-rebels in the gubernatorial 
letters of those days dispatched to the Colonial Secretary, 
just as, at a later date, Adams and Hancock were held up 
as the prime conspirators. 

Governor Bernard had no more love for Adams and Otis, 
at this time, than had Governor Gage for Adams and Han- 
cock at a later date ; and Hillsborough, the Colonial Secre- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 147 

tary in far-away London, held no easy office as the buffer 
for these warring factions. 

Doubtless, also, Adams and Otis had their quarrels, the 
latter being a man of both brilliant and fiery parts. It is 
known that they disagreed over such large measures as the 
proposed policy of Colonial representation in the imperial 
parliament and in all probability they quarrelled over small 
matters also. 

Although Governor Bernard cannot be considered an un- 
biased testifier, he relates that the two rebels had a smart 
set-to about the publication of the letter to Lord Hills- 
borough, which, written by Samuel Adams and approved by 
the assembly, had been sent on to the Colonial office without 
being submitted to the Governor. Its contents were known 
to the Whig assembly, but not to the Tories or to the public 
at large, and before the document reached London its author 
determined (with the assembly prorogued by the governor 
and the British warship still in Boston harbor) that it was 
time to let the world know what the letter to Hillsborough 
contained. 

On this point of disagreement between Otis and Adams, 
Governor Bernard writes to Lord Hillsborough : 

"I informed your Lordship that I had not seen, nor prob- 
ably should see, till it is printed, the letter of the House to 
your Lordship, although I am informed that I am much 
interested in the contents of it. But I shall soon have that 
satisfaction, being informed it is to be printed next Mon- 
day. 

"It seems that this morning the two consuls of the faction 
— Otis and Adams — had a dispute upon it in the Represen- 



148 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

tatives' room where the papers of the House are kept, which 
I shall write as a dialogue to save paper: 

''Otis — What are you going to do with the letter to Lord 
Hillsborough ?" 

''Adams — To give it to the printer to publish next Mon- 
day." 

"Otis — Do you think it proper to publish it so soon, that 
he may receive a printed copy before the original comes to 
his hand?" 

"Adams — What signifies that ? You know it was designed 
for the people and not for the minister." 

"Otis — You are so fond of your own drafts that you 
can't wait for the publication of them to a proper time." 

"Adams — I am clerk of this House and I will make that 
use of the papers which I please." 

"I had this," continues the Governor, "from a gentleman 
of the first rank, who I understand was present." 

It may be added that the letter referred to was published 
in the Boston Gazette of July 18, 1768. It was a forcible 
defense of the Circular Letter, based simply on the right of 
petition — an established right of all Englishmen — and con- 
cluded as follows : "And the House humbly rely on the 
royal clemency that to petition his Majesty will not be deem- 
ed by him to be inconsistent with a respect to the British 
Constitution, as settled at the Revolution by William the 
Third; that to acquaint their fellow-subjects, involved in 
the same distress, of their having so done, in full hopes of 
success, even if they had invited the union of all America 
in one joint supplication, would not be discountenanced by 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 149 

our glorious sovereign as a measure of an inflammatory 
nature." 

ADAMS AND SLAVERY. 

Several years before the town of Boston, through its 
representatives in the assembly, recommended the total aboli- 
tion of slavery in the province of Massachusetts (1776), a 
female slave named "Surry" was given to Mrs. Adams. 

When she acquainted her husband of the fact he at once 
said: "A slave cannot live in my house. If she comes, 

she must be free." , , c 1 

"Surry" accordingly came into the family of Samuel 
Adams, but as a free woman. There she lived under the 
kindest of treatment for nearly fifty years. She m turn 
rendered the most affectionate service to every member of 
the family. When slavery was formally abolished in the 
State, the usual papers, provided by law, were made out for 
her to sign These, however, she indignantly threw into the 
fire, considering the proposed proceeding a reflection on 
the good faith of Mr. Adams, who personally had set her 
free many years before, and remarking with spint that she 
had lived too long to be thus trifled with. During her vol- 
untary service of nearly half a century in the family of Mr. 
Adams, "Surry" never left Boston but twice. Her first de- 
parture was when the British troops occupied the city and 
her second, during the gubernatorial administration of Mr. 
Adams when small-pox was epidemic in the town. 

The main facts of the above story are upon the testimony 
of a niece of Mr. Adams, who was a little girl when "Surry" 
was freed, and the gentleman who communicated it justly 
remarks- "It serves to show the unity of Samuel Adams 



I50 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

character and that the love of hberty, for which he strove 
so early and with so much zeal and constancy, was at home 
with him and indeed a part of his very being." 

ETERNAL VIGILANCE, ETC., ETC. 

No man in America could more heartily subscribe to the 
sentiment that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" 
than Samuel Adams, and no measure tending to uphold it so 
taxed his resources as the maintenance of the non-importa- 
tion agreements. If the merchants had been all Whigs his 
would have been a fair-weather course, but many of them, 
notably the son of ex-Governor Bernard and the sons of 
Governor Hutchinson, were Tories. 

There were also several obstinate Scotchmen who gave 
him not a little trouble. One of them, John Mein, was 
publisher of the "Chronicle" as well as a large importer of 
the best books of the day. He was the founder of circulat- 
ing libraries in London and an enterprising and intelligent 
merchant. But notwithstanding the intelligent portion of 
the community appreciated the good points of Merchant 
Mein his persistent violation of the general pact among the 
patriots, coupled with the ridicule which he cast at them 
through the columns of his newspaper, eventually worked 
his exile from America. At length he became so obnoxious 
that he was assaulted by a crowd upon the street, fired a 
pistol among them and driven to the protection of the Brit- 
ish troops. Soon afterwards he escaped in disguise to Eng- 
land. 

Another of his countrymen, through the persuasive tac- 
tics of Mr. Adams, gracefully yielded to the logic of events 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 151 

and doubtless had his reward — though history saith not. 
He had also stubbornly refused to be a party to the non- 
importation agreement, holding that his importing business 
was his own concern and that he would do with it as he 
chose. How the little man with a reddish, smoke-dried wig 
and a squeaking voice was brought into the non-importation 
agreement through the ingenuity of Mr. Adams is elsewhere 
told under the head of "Samuel Adams and the Scotch- 
man." 

ADAMS WROTE THE ROYAL PETITION. 

In 1768 Samuel Adams dispatched a series of remark- 
able petitions to the King of England and members of his 
ministry, setting forth the grievances under which the Col- 
onists suffered, but sending forth no seditious whisper or 
desire for independence. Some have claimed the author- 
ship for Otis, although the clear-cut style and moderate sen- 
timents all point to Adams. 

Definite testimony on this point has been given by Mrs. 
Hannah Wells, daughter of Samuel Adams, who once said 
that she remembered the time when her father was busy 
with the actual composition of the petition to the King. It 
was impressed upon her mind because one day, as a little 
girl, she said to him in an awe-struck voice that the very 
paper he was writing would soon be touched with the royal 
hand. 

"It will, my dear," he replied, "more likely be spurned by 
the royal foot." 

But whatever value or interest the story may have, to be 
historically accurate it must be stated that neither the royal 



152 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

hand nor foot had the opportunity to spurn the petition, 
since it was never officially presented. 

THE AMERICAN EISIJER OF MEN. 

President John Adams was one of the many brilliant stars 
collected by the perseverance and genius of Samuel Adams 
into the galaxy of American patriots. In fact, to the other 
appellations of the latter Adams may aptly be added 'The 
American Fisher of Men." In 1765 he drew into his net, 
the young but rising lawyer of Braintree, his cousin, John 
Adams. As chairman of the committee to present a me- 
morial to the Governor for the opening of the provincial 
courts and to protect against the general paralysis of pub- 
lic and business life because of the Stamp Act, he appointed 
the future president of the United States as one of the 
three counsel to legally uphold the memorial mentioned. 
This was really John Adams' entry into public life, as 
Samuel Adams intended that it should be. The young 
lawyer was thirteen years the junior of the American Fisher 
of Men and long afterwards wrote as follows: ''Samuel 
Adams, to my certain knowledge, from 1758 to 1775, that is 
for seventeen years, made it his constant rule to watch the 
rise of every brilliant genius, to seek his acquaintance, to 
court his friendship, to cultivate his natural feelings in favor 
of his native country, to warn him against the hostile de- 
signs of Great Britain, and to fix his affections and reflec- 
tions on the side of his native country. I could enumerate a 
list, but I will confine myself to a few. John Hancock, after- 
wards President of the Congress and Governor of the State ; 
Dr. Joseph Warren, afterward Major-General of the militia 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



53 



of Massachusetts and the martyr of Bunker Hill ; Benjamin 
Church, the poet and the orator, once a pretended if not a 
real patriot, but afterwards a monument to the frailty of 
human nature; Josiah Quincy, the Boston Cicero and great 
orator of the body meetings/' 

John Adams has this also to say about the club to which, 
or to its successor, he was soon introduced by his kinsman: 
*'The Caucus Club meets at certain times in the garret of 
Tom Dawes, the adjutant of the Boston regiment. He has 
a large house and a movable partition in his garret, which 
he takes down, and the whole club meets in one room. 
There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one end 
of the garret to the other. There they drink flip, I sup- 
pose, and there they choose a moderator who puts questions 
to the vote regularly ; and selectmen, assessors, collectors, 
wardens, fire-ward, and representatives are regularly chosen 
before they are chosen in the town. They send committees 
to wait on the Merchant's Club and to propose and join in 
the choice of men and measures." 

The scope of the club's activities was afterwards broad- 
ened so as to embrace the general colonial affairs which agi- 
tated the country, and which its members had no small share 
in agitating. The membership was also increased so as to 
include not only John Adams, but Hancock, Cushing, Otis 
and other solid and brilliant patriots. The meetings were 
held more openly, sometimes in the parlor of Mr. Samuel 
Shed, a respectable Milk street grocer. 

John Adams again places the club members before us, 
saying of Samuel, its guiding spirit: "Adams, I believe, 
has the most thorough understanding of liberty and her re- 



154 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

sources in the temper and character of the people, though 
not in the law and the constitution ; as well as the most ha'b- 
itual, radical love of it of any of them, as well as the most 
correct, general and artful pen. He is a man of refined pol- 
icy, steadfast integrity, exquisite humanity, genteel erudi- 
tion, obliging, engaging manners, real as well as professed 
piety, and a universal good character, unless it should be 
admitted that he is too attentive to the public and not enough 
so to himself and his family." 

This club was from all accounts one of the most catching 
drag-nets for men who were useful to the cause of inde- 
pendence, which Sani. Adams ever put out. 

WORDS OF THE INSPIRING PROPHET. 

Not one of the great men who' witnessed the gradual dis- 
ruption of the States from the mother country was so con- 
fident from the first that the divorce would finally be com- 
plete as Samuel Adams, and not one — not even Washington 
himself — was more undaunted in spirit after the begin- 
ning of histilities. Adams did for the statesmen of the 
country, for the public men and public sentiment, what 
Washington did for the soldiers actually in the field — sus- 
tained them with his own unconquerable spirit through 
every period of natural depression and gloom. 

The year following the Declaration of Independence was 
especially dark. Congress itself, with no safe abiding place, 
had been reduced to twenty-eight members and had resolved 
to adjourn to Lancaster, Pa. Some of the leaders accident- 
ally met, however, and it is needless to say that their gen- 
eral facial hue was dark and their aspect had far more 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 15? 

length than breadth. Samuel Adams, however, was bright 
and cheerful. Despite the gloomy outlook, despite the lugu- 
brious views expressed then and there by his several col- 
leagues, he was still ready to shout that Lexington was a 
glorious day ! He listened patiently to the dark bitter end 
and then said : "Gentlemen, your spirits appear to be heav- 
ily oppressed with our public calamities. I hope you do 
not despair of our final success?" 

The burden of the answer was that ''the chance was des- 
perate." 

Mr. Adams replied: "If this be our language, it is so, 
indeed. If we wear long faces, they will become fashion- 
able. The people take their tone from ours, and if we de- 
spair can it be expected that they will continue their efforts 
in what we conceive to be a hopeless case? Let us banish 
such feelings and show a spirit that will keep alive the con- 
fidence of the people, rather than damp their courage. Bet- 
ter tidings will soon arrive. Our cause is just, and we shall 
never be abandoned by Heaven while we show ourselves 
worthy of its aid and protection." 

These words have the ring of a man who feels that a just 
cause places a leader, by the favor of God, above the natural 
depression of the average mortal. They also have the 
grand ring of the prophet and were thus deeply treasured 
by the friends of the sturdy patriot, when a few days after 
they were uttered better tidings did arrive in the news from 
Saratoga. 

ADAMS' TREASON SWORN TO. 

'Torn with conflicting emotions"— Adams' newspaper 
writings, his pubic speeches and petitions to royal governors, 



156 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

royal ministers and royalty itself prove that he was thus 
sadly afflicted, and that during the few years preceding and 
following the Boston Massacre he was mentally on the rack. 
As events of usurpation transpired, his attitude toward the 
mother country changed, and the modern stickler for politi- 
cal consistency would have an easy time shredding the repu- 
tation of Samuel Adams. In the heat of private discourse 
the best of earnest men often word their sentiments in forms 
which they would not care to have electrotyped abroad. 
Governor Bernard was diligent in collecting all of these 
chance words which could injure Adams and in promptly 
dispatching them to the colonial office in London. 

One of these gubernatorial collections is in the form of an 
affidavit, sworn to by a Boston tavern keeper, Richard Syl- 
vester, and taken before Chief Justice, afterward Governor 
Hutchinson. The Stamp Act had been repealed, but the re- 
lief measure had been followed within the year by the exter- 
nal duty on tea and other articles. Through the famous 
Circular Letter of Adams the union of the Colonies was 
threatened and British troops were on the way from Hali- 
fax to awe the Bostoneers into withdrawing all her meas- 
ures of opposition to the royal decrees. 

The tavern keeper says that upon one occasion during this 
critical period he observed a crowd of men in the street at 
the south end of the town. About the same time Mr. Adams 
joined the gathering "trembling and in great agitation," and 
the informant heard him exclaim : 'Tf you are men, be- 
have like men ! Let us take up arms immediately and be 
free, and seize all the King's officers. We shall have thirty 
thousand men to join us from the country." The tale-bearer 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 157 

adds that he then walked off, "believing his company disa- 
greeable." 

Upon another occasion, before the arrival of the troops 
while Mr. Adams w^as at the tavern of the informant, he 
is said to have delivered himself of the following: "We 
will not submit to any tax nor become slaves. We will take 
up arms and spend our last drop of blood before the King 
and Parliament shall impose on us and settle crown officers 
in this country to dragoon us. The country was first set- 
tled by our ancesters ; therefore we are free and want no 
King. The times were never better in Rome than when 
they had no king and were a free state; and as this is a 
great empire we shall have it in our power to give laws to 
England." 

At other times before the arrival of the troops, not only 
the inn-keeper himself, but his wife and the painter, George 
Mason, had heard Mr. Adams make such remarks. Espec- 
ially about a fortnight before the soldiers came the inform- 
ant had asked Adams what he thought of the times and the 
latter had answered, with great alertness, that, on lighting 
the beacon, 'Sve should be joined by thirty thousand men 
from the country, with their knapsacks and fixed bayonets," 
and added : "We will destroy every soldier that dare put 
his foot on shore. His Majesty had no right to send troops 
here to invade the country, and I look upon them as foreign 
enemies !'^ 

Again two or three days before the troops arrived Mr. 
Adams had said to the informant that Governor Bernard, 
Mr. Hutchinson and the Commissioners of the Customs had 
sent for the military force and repeated the same bitter Ian- 



158 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

guage against opposing the King's soldiers. The tavern 
keeper contradicted Mr. Adams and attributed the sending 
of the troops to the resolve of the General Court and the 
proceedings of the town meeeting. 

ADAMS AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. 

! The family estate left to Samuel Adams through the 
death of his father, in 1748, consisted of a good dwelling 
house and several outbuildings (including an old and dis- 
used malt-house) and a fine orchard and garden. On one 
of the front door steps were cut the letters S. A. and M. F., 
the latter standing for Mary Fifield, his mother. It is said 
the initials were cut there in 1713, the year of the marriage 
of Samuel Adams the elder, and were not obliterated by 
wear until at least a century thereafter. 

At the time of the Revolutionary war the household of 
the second Samuel Adams consited of his good wife and 
helpmate — she who made it possible for him to devote him- 
self with such a single head and heart to public affairs ; his 
daughter Hannah, about twenty years of age, and his son, 
Samuel, five years her senior. There were also Surry, the 
freed negro woman and devoted servant; a boy who made 
himself generally useful, and whom Mr. Adams was edu- 
cating, and last, but far from least, a tremendous New- 
foundland dog named "Queue," to whom the sight of a red- 
coat was more infuriating than a red rag to a bull, and who 
lived to bear the scars of many wounds inflicted by British 
clubs and bullets. The son mentioned had received an edu- 
cation at Harvard, through his father, and a professional 
training through his father's friend and family physician. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 159 

the brilliant and brave Dr. Joseph Warren. Young Adams 
entered practice, became a surgeon in the Revolutionary 
War and died as the result of exposure and disease while 
in the service of his country. 

Here in the family homestead Mr. Adams passed a life 
of simple activity, burning the midnight oil for many years 
in the preparation of that ante-Revolutionary literature 
which did so much to give birth to the United States of 
America. Here also he daily said grace at his simple meals 
or led in the nightly Bible readings. The house was, fur- 
ther, a favorite resort for young people, for whom Mr. 
Adams always had the kindest of words springing from the 
most spontaneous sympathy. When with the young, in fact, 
whether his own or other children, he entered into their feel- 
ings more as a champion than an elder. His home life was 
another proof added to the mass of testimony deduced from 
the lives of men whose stern bravery is based on principle — 
namely, that beneath the apparent hardness of the surface 
there is always a warm mellow subsoil of sympathy, tender- 
ness, and love. 

JOHN Randolph's tribute to adams. 

It is fitting here to make the record that it was John Ran- 
dolph, the meteoric, brilliant, erratic, and disease-racked 
statesman, who brought the death of Samuel Adams formal- 
ly before Congress. He was then thirty years of age and 
Adams had just passed away at the age of eighty-one. 

Mr. Randolph said in part: "It cannot indeed but be a 
matter of deep regret that one of the first statesmen of our 
country has descended to the grave full of years and full of 



i6o SAMUEL ADAMS. 

honors; that his character and fame are put beyond the 
reach of that time and chance to which everything mortal is 
exposed. But it becomes this House to cherish a sentiment 
of veneration for such men, since such men are rare, and to 
keep ahve the spirit to which we owe the constitution under 
which we are now deHberating. 

'This great man, the associate of Hancock, shared with 
him the honor of being proscribed by a flagitious Ministry 
whose object was to triumph over the Hberties of their coun- 
try by trampHng on those of her Colonies. With his great 
compatriot, he made an early and decided stand against 
British encroachment, whilst souls more timid were trem- 
bling and irresolute. It is the glorious privilege of minds of 
this stamp to give an example to a people and fix the destiny 
of nations." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. i6i 

A RECORD OF "THANKS." 

The papers of Samuel Adams' day contained many 
political satires, directed at different parties, according 
to the political bias of the papers, usually personal, often 
disrespectful, even irreverent, sometimes witty, but gen- 
erally finding their point in local fitness and the relish 
which personality always gives to newspaper squibs. In 
Rivington's Royal ^^Gazette^^^ on the occasion of a day of 
general thanksgiving being appointed by the Massachu- 
setts Congress, appeared the following: 

"THANKS UPON THANKS. 

("A Grace for the Port of Boston.) 

"Thanks to Hancock for thanksgiving: 
Thanks to God for our good living: 
Thanks to Gage for hindering evil: 
And for source of discord civil, 
Thanks to Adams and the devil." 

NO FAITH IN THE KING. 

Whatever may have been the private views of Mr. 
Adams with regard to the ultimate future and indepen- 
dence of the colonies, no one can read the letters and 
petitions to the government, framed and many of them 
penned by Samuel Adams, up to 1769, and fail to ob- 
serve and admire the clearness and moderation with 
which the grievances are stated, as well as the firmness 
with which their rights are asserted. 

Yet an incident related by Mrs. Hannah Wells, Mr. 
Adams' daughter, shows how little faith he himself had 
in the mercy or justice of the king. 

The young girl remarked, as she glanced over the pe- 



J ^2 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

titioii to the king, "That paper will soon be touched by 
the royal hand." Her father quickly replied, "It will, 
my dear, more likely be spurned by the royal foot." 

SAMUEL ADAMS AND THE vSCOTCHMAN. 

As an instance of Samuel Adams' skill in dealing 
with mankind, an anecdote related by his daughter is 
worth noting. At a meeting of the Assembly, where 
over two thousand persons were present, a committee re- 
ported that one Mr. Mac , a stubborn Scotch- 
man and a large importer, had refused to come into the 
non-importation association. An angry spirit was mani- 
festing itself, when Mr. Adams, with that siiaviter in 
modo which always distinguished him, arose and moved 
that the Assembly resolve itself into a committee of the 

whole house, wait on Mr. Mac , and urge his 

compliance. This was met by an affirmative, and, the 
business of the day proceeding, when suddenly from an ob- 
scure corner, not relishing such a possibly massive argu- 
ment, came a squeaking voice in a Scotch accent, "Mr. 
Moderator, I agree ! I agree !" This imexpected inter- 
ruption from the diminutive, grotesque figure, in a red- 
dish smoke-dried wig, drew all eyes upon him. His 
sudden conversion, and the manner in which it was ob- 
tained, brought thunders of applause. 

Mr. Adams, with a polite, condescending bow of pro- 
tection, pointed to a seat near by, and quieted the dis- 
creet and frightened Scotchman. 

LIBERTY TREE AND LIBERTY HALL. 

Lafayette said, when in Boston, "The world should 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 163 

never forget the spot where once stood Liberty Tree, so 
famous in your annals." The open space at the four 
corners of Washington, Essex and Boylston Streets, 
was once known as Hanover Square, from the royal 
house of Hanover, and sometimes as the Elm Neigh- 
borhood, from the magnificent elms with which it 
was environed. It was one of the finest of these that 
obtained the name of Liberty Tree, from its being used 
on the first occasion of resistance to the obnoxious 
Stamp Act. 

At daybreak on the 14th of August, 1765, nearly ten 
years before active hostilities broke out, an efiigy of 
Mr. Oliver, the Stamp officer, and a boot, with the devil 
peeping out of it — an allusion to Lord Bute — was dis- 
covered hanging from Liberty Tree. The images re- 
mained hanging all day, and were visited by great num- 
bers of people, both from the town and the neighboring 
country. Business was almost suspended. Lieutenant- 
Governor Hutchinson ordered the sheriff to take the 
figures down, but he was obliged to admit that he dared 
not do so. 

As the day closed the effigies were taken down, placed 
upon a bier, and, followed by several thousand people 
of every class and condition, were borne through the 
city and then burned, after which much riotous conduct 
on the part of the crowd occurred. 

In 1766, when the repeal of the Stamp Act took place, ' 
a large copper plate was fastened to the tree, inscribed 
in golden characters: "This tree was planted in the year 
1646; and pruned by order of the Sons of Liberty, Feb. 



164 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

i4tli, 1766.' The ground immediately about Liberty 
Tree was popularly known as Liberty Hall. 

In August, 1767, a flagstaff had been erected, which 
went through and extended above its highest branches. 
A flag hoisted upon this staff was the signal for the as- 

s-^mbling of the Sons of Liberty In August, 1775, 

tne name of Liberty having become offensive to the 
Tories and their British Allies, the tree was cut down 
by a party led by one Job Williams. — kS. A. Drake^ 
''^ Old Landmarks of Boston ^^ ch. //. 

CONTINENTAL MONEY. 

Samuel Adams, with one of his colleagues, occupied 
the commonest lodgings in Philadelphia, and lived in 
the most frugal style. 

The value of the Continental money may be inferred 
from a letter to Mrs. Adams early in 1779, which sa}s: 

"I was asked four hundred dollars for a hat, three 
hundred for a pair of leather breeches, one hundred and 
twenty-five for a pair of shoes, and a suit of clothes six- 
teen hundred." 

PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL ADAMS. 

The question was asked, "Who will paint Samuel 
Adams at the head of ten thousand freemen and volun- 
teers, with his quivering, paralytic hands, in the council 
chamber, shaking the souls of Hutchinson and Dalrym- 
ple, and driving down to the Castle the two offending 
regiments, which Lord North ever afterwards called 
Sam Adams' regiments." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



i6,- 



This is tlie very moment Joliii Singleton Copley has 
seized to paint the portrait of Adams for John Hancock, 
which now hangs in Faneuil Hall. The engraving from 
this painting is published as a frontispiece to this sketch. 




Paul Revere's House, Watertown. Mass. 
First Continental Notes were Printed Here by Paul Revere. 

A STORY OF SAMUEL AND JOHN ADAMS. 

History hardly furnishes an example of a man so com- 
pletely lost to self and the natural desire, common to all, 
of improving their pecuniary condition. He was so re- 
gardless of wealth or the means of attaining it, that 
those about him censured him for it. His friend, John 
Adams, repeatedly alludes to this singular disregard of 
riches, a trait, by the way, in which Samuel Adams was a 



,66 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

source of curious wonder to his more thrifty kinsman. 
One day in June, in the next year, when a serene sum- 
mer sky spanned a landscape in which waving fields and 
rustling orchards formed to some extent, as now, the 
pleasant scenery about New England's capital, the two 
friends rode out together in a chaise, and conversed of 
their personal affairs. 

They often called each other "brother," and the rela- 
tionship implied was in after years supposed to exist in 
reality. 

"My brother, Samuel Adams," thus the lawyer and 
patriot wrote that day in his diary, "says he never looked 
forward in his life; never planned, laid a scheme, or 
formed a design of laying up anything for himself or 
others after him. 

"I told him I could not say that of myself; 'if that had 
been true of me, you would never have seen my face.' 
And I think this was true. 

"I was necessitated to ponder in my youth, to con- 
sider of ways and means of raising a subsistence, food 
and raiment, and books and money to pay for my educa- 
tion to the bar. So that I must have sunk into total 
contempt and obscurity, if not perished for want, if I 
had not planned for futurity. 

"And it is no damage to a young man to learn the art 
of living early, if it is at the expense of much musing, 
and pondering, and anxiety." 

LITTLE ELIZABETH ROLFE AND THE INDIANS. 

The mother of Miss Elizabeth Checkley, the first wife 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 167 

of Samuel Adams, was the daughter of the Rev. Benja- 
min Rolfe, of Haverhill, Massachusetts. A great Indian 
massacre took place in this village in the early New 
England days. 

The inhabitants were surprised by the attack of their 
savage foes. More than a hundred men, women and 
children were tomahawked by their merciless foes. 

The father of little Elizabeth was killed while defend- 
ing his home. Elizabeth and her young sister would 
have shared his fate had it not been for the ready wit of 
a maid servant. 

When the alarm was given she rushed down into the 
cellar with the two children, took an empty tub that 
was standing there, put it in a corner, then charging 
them on their lives not to make the least noise, 
turned it over them. And although the Indians went 
through the house and down the cellar, they did not 
discover the frightened occupants in their place of safety. 
For although their hearts were beating violently with 
fear, they kept "as still as a mouse," and so were saved. 

THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

It" is said that one of the reasons given for calling 
Samuel Adams "The Last of the Puritans," was the fact 
that he, was the last man so far as known, in New 
England who wore the Continental costume. 

THE NAMES OR APPEELATIONS GIVEN TO 
SAMUEIv ADAMS. 

Sam the Maltster. Sam the Publican. The Boston 



1 68 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Tribune. The Man of the Town Meeting. The Puri- 
tan Patriot. The Great Debater. The Brain of the 
Revohition. The Palinnrus of the Revolution. The 
Chief Incendiary in his Majesty's Dominions. The First 
of Politicians. The Cromwell of America. The Apos- 
tle of Liberty. The Father of the Revolution. The 
Father of America. The Last of the Puritans. 



THE STORY OF SAMUEL ADAMS. 

FOR A SCHOOL OR CLUB PROGRAMME. 

Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or 
member to read in a clear, distinct tone. 

If the School or Club is small, each person may take 

three or four paragraphs, but should not be required to 

recite them in succession. 

r. Samuel Adams was born in Boston, Massachusetts, Septem- 
ber i6, 1722. His remote ancestors were Welsh. 

2. Henry Adams, who came from Devonshire, England, had two 
grandsons. One of these, Joseph Adams, was the grandfather of 
President John Adams, the other John Adams, a sea captain, was the 
grandfather of Samuel Adams, the great statesman. 

3. The father of Samuel Adams, who bore the same name, was 
a man of wealth and influence. He was a leader of men, and held 
several important offices of trust and honor. 

4. His father was very fond of politics, and founded the "Caulk- 
er's Club," from which the word, "Caucus," has been derived. 

5. Samuel Adams inherited from his father his political tastes 
and aptitudes. 

6. His mother's name was Mary Fifield. She was a pious and 
devoted woman, and imparted to Samuel his sturdy, moral character, 

7. Samuel first studied in the Boston Latin School, then was 
graduated from Harvard College in 1740. He was there a close stu- 
dent of the Greek and Latin authors, and often quoted from them in 
his writings. 

8. What was afterwards said of Lord Macaulay was true of 
Samuel Adams. "He was as much at home with Cicero and Atticus as 
with the statesmen of his own day." 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 169 

g. He was especially fond of the writings of John Locke, whose 
famous essays on "The Human Understanding," and on "The Princi- 
ples of Free Government," very greatly shaped his career. 

10. When he took his Master's degree he chose as a theme, 
"Whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate if the Com- 
monwealth cannot otherwise be preserved." W^e see that "Just as the 
twig is bent, the tree's inclined." 

11. Though it was his intention at first to enter the ministry, he 
abandoned the idea, and entered into mercantile life. 

12. He soon found himself unfitted for business, and began to 
devote himself to politics, and the contribution of articles on political 
subjects to the newspapers of Boston. 

13. His father, whom he greatly admired, respected and loved, 
died in 1748. He then carried on the malting business in his father's 
stead, and was called by his political enemies, "Sammy, the Maltster." 

14. When he was appointed, soon after, tax collector for the 
town of Boston, he was nicknamed by the wits of the time, "Sammy, 
the Publican." 

15. He married, October 17, 1749, Elizabeth Checkley, a woman 
of marked personal beauty, grace of manner, and sterling character. 

16. He now developed his powers in political affairs. "He had 
all the courage and indomitable perseverance of his cousin, John Ad- 
ams, but without his bluntness of manner." 

17. "As an adroit political manager he was not surpassed by 
Jefferson, whom he resembled in his thorough going democracy." 

18. He formed a private political club in Boston, of which he 
was the ruling spirit. 

19. It became the secret source from which proceeded the 
steady and persistent resistance to British aggression. 

20. This resistance, beginning in Boston, soon embraced all 
New England, and finally the whole country. 

21. It was in his forty-second year that his great political power 
began, and in the same year, his first wife having died in 1757, he 
married Elizabeth Wells, the daughter of Francis Wells, Esq., of 
Boston. 

22. She was a woman most admirably fitted in every way to 
sympathize with him, and assist him in his great life work. 

23. He drafted the resolutions, in 1764, against Grenville's 
Stamp Act. The next year he was elected to the Legislature of 
IMassachusetts, and officiated as clerk until 1774. 

24. During this eventful year he drew up the remarkable State 
Papers, which have given him undying fame. 

25. When the king sent troops into Boston, contrary to the will 
of its citizens, Samuel Adams on the platform, in the work-shops. 



70 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 



in the homes of the people, and on the streets, denounced the out- 
rage. 

26. He declared that every soldier who set foot in Massachu« 
setts ought to be shot down. 

27. He said, "The king has no right to send troops here to in- 
vade the country; if they come, they will come as foreign enemies. 
We will not submit to any tax or become slaves. 

28. "We will take up arms and spend our last drop of blood, be- 
fore the King and Parliament shall impose on us, or settle Crown 
officers independent of the Colonial Legislature, to dragoon us." 

29. He said a little later, "We are free, therefore, and want no 
king. The times were never better in Rome than when they had no 
king, and were a free State." 

30. After the tragic Boston Massacre, he went as the represen- 
tative of the people to Governor Hutchinson, and compelled him by 
the force of his manner and his stern, unequivocal language to re- 
move the hated troops from Boston. 

31. In 1772, he moved the appointment of a "Committee of Cor- 
respondence," which organized the American Revolution, for it led 
directly up to the Continental Congress. 

32. In 1773, he gave the signal for the destruction of the tea in 
the Boston harbor, and the Boston Tea Party went forever into his- 
tory. 

33. He left General Gage in the lurch at Salem, by locking the 
door of the building where the General Court was in session, and car- 
rying through the election of delegates to the Continental Congress. 

34. He again left General Gage in the rear when Hancock and 
himself went over the hills and valleys, out of the reach of the regu- 
lars, at Lexington, April 18, 1775, to their immortal work in securing 
the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. 

35. For eight years he took an active and important part in the 
work of the Congress; and then went to the discharge of his political 
duties in his own beloved Massachusetts. 

36. As a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Conven- 
tion, of the Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, as Lieuten- 
ant Governor and Governor, he faithfully performed his part. 

37. He was gathered at last to his fathers, like a shock of corn 
fully ripe in his season, on the second of October, 1803, and all that 
was mortal of him was laid away to rest in the Granary Burying 
Ground, in the city for whose welfare and glory he had labored near- 
ly three score years. 

38. The mother of George the Third, said to him on his acces- 
sion to the throne, "George be kingP 

39. There was one man over whom he could not be king, with 
his own and his mother's idea of royalty, and he was Samuel Adams. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 171 

40. James Parton says: "Lord North fought the American Rev- 
olution from the Stamp Act to the surrender of CornwalUs, with a 
bought majority in the House of Commons." 

41. Samuel Adams spurned the tempting offer of a British peer- 
age, refused a place among its august aristocracy, and a salary of 
two thousand guineas a year from the king. 

42. When the king could neither bribe nor intimidate our hero 
and his fellow patriots, then he wanted war. 

43. When the news of the rebellion reached him, he rubbed his 
hands exultingly and said, "Now the die is cast, four regiments will 
bring the Americans to their senses." 

44. Poor George! he never came to his senses, even when "Sam 
Adams' Conspiracy," as he termed it, had so wonderfully succeeded. 

45. It broke the heart of Lord North when the news of the sur- 
render of Cornwallis reached him, but as Dr. Barrows says: "It could 
not fracture the skull of George the Third." 

46. The Massachusetts Senate, in 1804, had an acrimonious de- 
bate over the resolutions offered to the memory of Samuel Adams, 
and cut out their most expressive, eulogistic features. 

47. John Adams wrote, that for thirty years a systematic course 
had been pursued to run Samuel Adams down. 

48. But Massachusetts has made full amends for the wrong 
done her noblest son. 

49. In her State House, his marble face looks down upon the 
beholder in its Doric Hall, where stand the statues of Andrew and 
Sumner, of Lincoln and Washington. 

50. Massachusetts was empowered, with the other States, some 
time ago, to place in the old hall of the House of Representatives, 
the statues of her two representative men. 

51. The two men she selected as the most representative of that 
grand Puritan Commonwealth, were John Winthrop. the first Govern- 
or of the old Bay Colony, and Samuel Adams. 

52. In Dock Square, Boston, now called Adams Square in his 
honor, has been erected the bronze copy of Miss Whitney's noble 
statue in Washington, of the people's uncompromising champion. 

53. There he stands, with folded arms, defiantly waiting an an- 
swer from Governor Hutchinson to his unwavering demand, ''Both 
regimejtts or none T' 

54. Though neglected and traduced so long, by those who ought 
never to have forgotten his transcendent services to his country, Jef- 
ferson regretted that he could not call the aged statesman to the 
foremost place in his own administration. 

55. The ablest thinkers and leaders of American thought have 
been adding, during these later years, to his justly deserved renown. 



172 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

56. George W. Curtis said of him: "He lifted the Continental 
Congress in his arms, and hurled it beyond the irrevocable line of 
Independence." 

57. Garfield declared him to be the greatest embodiment of the 
Revolutionary ideas. Winthrop says he conquered the British Cabi- 
net and king with a Puritan Town Meeting. 

58. Dr. John Henry Barrows says: "More than any other patriot, 
he toiled to root in the minds of the people those convictions of hu- 
man right which blossomed into martial heroism at Lexington and 
Bunker Hill." 

59. John Fiske says: "He was second only in the history of the 
American Revolution to Washington himself. 

60. Professor Hosmer maintains "That as far as the genesis of 
America is concerned, he can be more properly called 'The Father 
of America' than Washington himself." 



PROGRAMME FOR A SAMUEL ADAMS EVENING. 

1. Instrumental Music — Variations of Patriotic Airs. 

2. Recitation— "Puritan Politics in England and New England." 
Edward Everett Hale. (See Old South Leaflets, Fifth Series, 1887.) 

3. Essay — Repeal of the Stamp Act, (See Speeches of Sum- 
ner, p. 335.) 

4. Vocal Solo — "Star Spangled Banner," or other Patriotic Song. 

5. Essay — Story of the Boston Massacre. (See Atlantic Monthly, 
Nov., 1863, pp. 607-8-9, for an excellent account, or any good general 
History of the United States.) 

6. Anecdotes of Samuel Adams. 

7. The names given to Adams; and the names under which he 
wrote. 

8. Brief Discussion on George the Third and his Ministers. 

9. Question Box. 

10. "America" — Sung by all present. 



QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. 

What have y oil to say about history? What about the 7-omance of 
history? What was the forertinner of the A7nerican Revolution? 
Who were the i7t habitants of the A^ew Eng/and Colonies? Who of 
the Southern States? What has been the influence of New England 
in the United States? Of the Town Meeting? What proportion of 
troops did New England firnish during the Revolutionary War? 
I f liat p?-oportion Massac h usetts ? 

II hat important fact must he kept in mind regarding the A??ieri- 
can Revolution ? Wliat was the real attitude of the English nation 
towards the Colonies? Na7ne some despotic 7nonarchs? Na7}ie so7ne 
E7iglish7nen opposed to the Colonies? Na7ne the great English states- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 173 

men who were in favor of them ? What are some quotations from 
their speeches and sayings ? 

What are some of the characteristics of Samuel Adams as a states- 
man in contrast with a demagogue? What were some of his qualities? 
M' hat two names given to Samuel Adams were linked together? 
I Vhy ? I Vho were some of the co-patriots of Samuel A dams ? I Vhat is 
said of them? 

What was the personal appearance of Samuel Adams? His man- 
7ier? His dress? Who were his ancestors? Who the founders of the 
family in Massachusetts? When and whe7-e was he born? What 
was the influence of Samuel Adams mother? What is said of his 
father ? J IViat story is told of the Punctuality of young A dams ? J I 'hat 
of interest was there in his College life? What was the topic of his 
master s oration? 

Who was his first wife, and what were her cha?'acteristics? 
What led up to the co7ttemplated selling of his property at auctio?t? 
What kind of a Tax Collector was Samuel Adams? What are the 
facts regarding his alleged defalcation? What were ''Writs of As- 
sistance?" What was ''The Stajup Act Bill?" Who was the second 
wife of Samuel A dams ? 1 1 'hat were her characteristics ? 

J I 'hat was ' ' The Sugar Bill?' ' 1 1 'ho opposed Grenville ? What 
was the effect of the passage of the Stamp Act? What was the effect 
of its repeal? 

U7iat was Samuel Adams relation to fohn Hancock? Who was 
Governor Bernard? What we?-e his characteristics? Who was fo- 
seph Haw ley ? What have you to say about the consistency of Samuel 
Adams? What was the attitude of the best English statesmen regard- 
ing the trial of Sainucl Adams for treason? What were the causes 
leading tip to "The Boston Massacre?" What were the principal 
features of that important incident? 

What were the principal features of "The Boston Tea Party?" 
What were the interesting features of the meeting of the General 
Court at Salem ? JlV/at was the feeling of Parliament regarding the 
destruction of the tea? ]]'hat stroke of policy was made by Samuel 
Adams in the Congress at Philadelphia? Who supported Adams in 
his plans? What is the substance of the Earl of Chatham' s tribute to 
the Continental Congress? 

What are the Principal features connected with the address of 
Jf^arren, March 6, 177 j? JfVio were the Minute Men? What were 
the principal events leading up to the Battle of Lexington ? I Vhat did 
William Dawes and Paul Revere do? What is the substance of the 
language of George William Curtis o?t the Battle of Lexington ? 

What was the attitude in general of the Congress towards Sam- 
uel Adams in the early days of 177^ ? 

What wej-e the principal features of the appointment of IVash- 
ington as Commander-in-Chief? When was the Battle of Bunker 
Hill fought ? What was the relation of Samuel Adams to Dr War- 
ren ? What was the character of General Charles Lee ? 



174 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

JV/iaf was the substmice of Samuel Adams' reply to the Quakers 
of Philadelphia? What were the principal features connected with 
the signing of the Declaration of Independence? 

What are the facts relating to the supposed entnity of Samuel 
A dams to 1 1 ^ashington ? II 'hat 7vere the principal features of Samuel 
Adams' j-elation to the Federal Constitution? Wliat was his j-elation 
to7ua?-ds Hancock at the close of his life? What was his ?-elation to 
the common schools? What was his relatiojt to the theatre? What 
honor did General Strong pay him? When and where did he die? 
What were the principal features of his funeral? Where was he 
buried? 

What is the story of the attempt of Goi'crnor Gage to bribe Sam- 
uel Adams? What is said of the proscription of Adams and Han- 
cock? What was Samuel Adatns' loyalty to non-importatio7i? What 
is the story of Adams' new clothes? What is the story of the mixtu?-e 
of tea ? llViat was Adams' social character? What was his fearless- 
ness and boldness ? His hopefulness and piety ? His deterinination ? 
What was he as a ''power behijtd the throjie?'' What is the story of 
Adams and the Scotchman? 

What was his breadth of view? His integrity ? His knowledge 
of human nature? Ruling passion and aim? What were his qualities 
as a public speaker? What is the story of little Elisabeth Rolfe and 
the Indiatis? What arc some of the names'given to Samuel Ada?ns? 



SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY. 

/. The character and services of the Earl of Chatham. 

2. The character and services of William Pitt. 

J. The administration of Gover7ior Bernard. 

^. The adjuinistratiott of Governor Hutchinson. 

J. The different kinds of Colonial Govenwients. 

6. The Charter of Massachusetts Bay. 

y. The Boston Massacre. 

8. The trial of the officers and soldiers involved in the Boston 
Massacre. 

g. The Destruction of the Tea. 

10. Representative men iit Boston History. 

11. Samuel Adams as a Writer. 

12. Sa7nuel Ada?ns as a Speaker, 
ij. Samuel Adams as a Politician. 
14. The Town Meeting. 

IJ. The year lyyy. 

16. History in the Boston Streets. 

In the study of these a7id kindred subjects, "The Old South Leaf- 
lets,'' prepared by Edwin D. Mead, and published by D. C. Heath &■* 
Co., are most cordially reconwietided. They are full of valuable infor- 
mation. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 175 

CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF SAMUEL ADAMS. 

1722 Born in Boston, September 16. 
1736 Enters Harvard College. 

1748 Helps found ''The Public Advertiser.'' 

1749 Marries Elizabeth Checkley, October 17. 
1763-65 Serves as Tax Collector. 

1764 Drafts the Report of Instructions of the Boston Town Meeting, 

on Parliamentary Taxation, May 24. 

Originates the first plan to unite the Colonies against Parlia- 
mentary Oppression. 

Marries Elizabeth Wells for his second wife, December 6. 

1765 Passage of the Stamp Act by Parliament, March. -'Sons of 

Liberty" organized, probably Aug. 12. Adams drafts Instruc- 
tions of Boston Town Meeting on Parliamentary Represen- 
tation, Sept. 18. Boston Town Meeting elects Adams a 
Member of the Massachusetts Legislature, Sept. 27. 
Drafts the famous Massachusetts Resolves on the Inherent 
Rights and Privileges of the Province, Oct. 29, Adams 
writes Remonstrance of the Assembly against the Issue of 
Moneys for Repairing Forts and Fortifications, November 4. 

1766 Meeting of Massachusetts Legislature in which Adams acts on 

Important Measures, Jan. 15 to Feb. 24. Re-Elected to the 
Legislature May 6. Repeal of the Stamp Act, March 18. 

1767 Adams Elected Clerk of the Legislature, May 27. 

1768 He writes the Assembly's Letter to Deberdt on ';The True Sen- 

timents of America," Jan. 13. He writes other imjDortant Ad- 
dresses of the Assembly to the Ministry, their Petition to the 
King, a Circular Letter to other Provincial Assemblies, Janu- 
ary and February. Adams writes Reply of the Assembly to 
the Governor's Message, June 30. Adams concludes that 
American Independence is a Political and Natural Necessity. 

1769 Richard Sylvester makes deposition against Samuel Adams for 

Treason, Jan. 23. Address to "The Sons of Liberty," by Ad- 
ams, March 18. Adams re-elected to the Legislature, May 5. 
Re-elected Clerk. Writes Remonstrance of the House against 
the Presence of the Troops, May 31. Adams, with James 
Otis, holds Conference with the Commissioners of the Cus- 
toms, Sept. I. 

1770 The Boston Massacre, March 5. Adams compels Hutchinson to 

withdraw the Troops, March 6. Adams Re-elected to the 
Legislature, May 8. He persuades Hancock to remain in the 
Boston Delegation, May 11. Adams elected Clerk, May 30. 
He writes the Replies of the Legislature to Hutchinson, etc., 
October. He writes the Letter of Instructions of the House 
to Franklin, Nov. 6. 

1771 Adams Re-elected to the Legislature, May 7. Re-elected 

Clerk, May 29. Adams appointed one of a Committee on 



176 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Correspondence, June 27. He drafts a Letter of Instructions 
to Franklin in London, June 29. He replies for the Assem- 
bly to Governor Hutcfiinson, regarding Arbitrary Instruc- 
tions received from King George, July 5. He writes various 
articles for the "6^rt^<?/'/<?" advising the Union of the Colonies 
and an Assembly of Deputies, Sept. and Oct. He denies Par- 
liamentary supreme authority over the Colonies, in various 
articles and essays, Oct., Dec, and Jan. 1772. 

1772 Adams victorious over the opposition to his measures in the 

Legislature, April 8. Re-elected to the Legislature against 
great opposition, May 6. He drafts for the Committee of 
the House, "The Rights of the Colonies," Nov. 20. 

1773 Adams replies to Hutchinson on the supremacy of Parliament, 

Jan. 26. Adams writes a rejoinder to Hutchinson's reply on 
Parliamentary supremacy, March 2. Virginia organizes a 
Continental Committee on Correspondence, March 12. 
Adams re-elected to the Legislature, May 6. Re-appointed 
clerk. May 26. Adams' Resolutions, confirming action of 
Virginia, passed, May 28. Adams denounced by Hutchinson 
to the ministry, Oct. g. Adams composes a letter to the 
other Colonies, for the Boston Committee of Correspondence, 
Oct. 21. The signal for the "Boston Tea Party" jiven by 
Adams, Dec. 16. 

1774 The Committees defended by Adams against the Governor's 

opening address, Feb. 5. Letter by Adams to the other 
Provinces, and instructions to P>anklin, March 28. Adams 
re-elected to the Legislature, May 10. Adams prepares a 
letter to the Committees of the other Colonies on the Tea 
Question, May 12. 

"A Continental Non-Importation League," proposed at a town 
meeting presided over by Adams, May 13. Adams moves 
resolutions to appoint five delegates to a Continental Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, June 17. The Government tries in 
vain to corrupt Adams, July. Adams journeys to the Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, Aug. 10-29. 

Continental Congress meets at Philadelphia, Sept. 5. Adams 
re-elected to the Legislature, Sept. 21. Continental Con- 
gress having dissolved, Adams returns to Boston, Oct. 26. 
Meeting of the Provincial Congress, in which Adams urges 
active measures, Nov. 23. 

1775 Massachusetts declared by England to be in a state of rebel- 

lion, Jan. Adams sends letter to the friends of liberty in 
Canada, Feb. 21. Adams drafts a letter to the Mohawks, 
March 22. The British set out to seize Adams and Hancock 
at Lexington. Battle of Lexington, April 18, 19. Adams 
and Hancock go to the Second Continental Congress at 
Philadelphia, April 19 to May 10. Second Continental Con- 
gress meets. Adams urges an immediate Declaration of In- 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 177 

dependence, May 10, etc. General Gage offers pardon to all 
except Adams and Hancock, June 12. Washington elected 
Commander-in-Chief on nomination of John and Samuel Ad- 
ams, June 15. Continental Congress adjourns. Funds for 
the Army carried by Adams to General Washington, August 
i-ii. Adams becomes member of the Council and is elected 
Secretary of State, Aug. 15. Continental Congress meets. 
Adams renders active service, Sept. 13, etc. 

1776 Adams proposes to try a separate Confederacy, with New 

England alone, if necessary, Jan. Adams advocates the dis- 
arming of the Tories, and urges retaliation against British 
outrages, Jan. 2 to March 14. Adams re-elected a delegate 
to Congress, Jan. iq. 

Adams publishes addresses to the people of Pennsylvania on 
the Quaker doctrine of submission, Feb. 3, etc. He supports 
the resolutions for an independent government. May 10. 

Declaration of Independence discussed and adopted, July 2-4. 
Returns to Congress, Oct. 24. Appointed chairman of Com- 
mittee on the State of the Northern Army. He advises giv- 
ing Washington dictatorial powers, Dec. 

1777 Congress reduced to twenty members. Adams still full of 

hope, Sept. and Oct. The Articles of Confederation signed, 
Nov. 15. Adams arrives in Boston, Dec. 4. 

1778 Adams takes his seat in Congress, and is made chairman of the 

Marine Committee, May 21. Adams is re-elected delegate 
to Congress, Nov., Dec. 

1779 Adams returns to Boston, and resumes the duties of Secretary 

of State, June 20. He urges sending troops to aid Rhode 
Island and Connecticut, July. He is elected representative 
from Boston to the State Constitutional Convention, August. 
He becomes member of the Council, Sept. 9. Adams, with 
others, draft a Constitution, by order of the Convention held 
at Cambridge, Sept. i, etc. 

1780 Adams, in an address for the Convention, explains the Consti- 

tution, Feb. He becomes an incorporator of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, May 4. He goes with El- 
bridge Gerry to Philadelphia, and secures re-inforcements 
for the Highlands which are in danger from the British, June, 
etc._ Adams and Gerry take their seats in Congress, June 29. 
He is defeated as candidate for Secretary of State at home, 
October, 

1781 Adams not in favor of the creation of Secretaries of War, Fi- 

nance and Foreign Relations, with separate departments. 
Adams takes final leave of Congress and returns to Boston, 
April. He declines an election to Congress. Serves again 
as President of the Massachusetts Senate, Feb. 20. He 
drafts resolutions expressing the determination of Massachu- 
setts to continue the war until independence is secured, July 



178 SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Adams is defeated as candidate for Governor. He is re- 
elected to the Senate, April. 
1784 Adams does not favor the Order of the Cincinnati, April. He 
is re-elected to the Senate of Massachusetts, and again 
chosen President, April. He is elected to Congress, but de- 
clines, November. 

1786 Is re-elected to the Senate, but declines a seat in the Council, 

April, May. 

1787 Writes the declaration of the Senate regarding Shay's rebel- 

lion, Feb. 3-5. Is re-elected President of the Council, April. 

1788 Assists in the ratification of the Constitution of the United 

States in the Massachusetts Convention, Jan. 9 to Feb. 6. Is 
defeated as candidate for Congress, Dec. 
1789-92 Adams serves as Lieut. Governor. He becomes Governor 
on the death of Governor Hancock, Oct. 8. 

1794 He is chosen Governor to succeed Hancock. 

1795 Adams is re-elected Governor, May. 

1796 Adams opposes Jay's treaty. He is re-elected Governor, and 

is fifth on the list of candidates for the Presidency. 

1798 He retires from public life. 

1803 Death of Adams, Oct. 2. Difficulty in obtaining a proper es- 
cort for his funeral, Oct. 6. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



For those who wish to read extensively, the following works are 
especially commended: 

Samuel Adams. Bv Herbert B. Adams. Johns Hopkins L'niversity 
Studies in Historical and Political Scienoe. Baltimore. N. Mur- 
rav, 1883. 

Life of Samuel Adams. James K. Hosmer. American Statesmen 
Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Companv, Boston, 1885. 

The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams. William P. Wells. 
3 Vols., 8vo. Boston. Little, Brown & Company, 1865. 

Eminent Americans. Benson J. Lossing, LL.D. New York. Ameri- 
can Book Exchange, 1881. 

Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Volume 20, 
p. 213. Boston. Published bv the Societv, 1884. 

The Sam Adams' Regiment in Boston. Atlantic Monthly, June and 
August, 1862, and November, 1863. 

Samuel Adams, the Father of the Revolution. Harper's Magazme, 
Julv, 1876. . , ^ 

Samuef Adams, the Last of the Puritans. Congregational Quarterly, 
Vol. XI, 

Memoir of Samuel Adams. New England Register, \ ol. 30, 279. 







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